News from around the world concerning Weather/Climate. Note that neither I nor the University of Kentucky necessarily agree or disagree with these articles. I provide them for your review./ktp -- \----------------------------------------------------------/ I.B.M. Gets Contract for Weather Supercomputer June 1, 2002 By JOHN MARKOFF SAN FRANCISCO, May 31 - As part of an effort to close a growing gap facing United States scientists in weather prediction, the government awarded I.B.M. a $224.4 million contract today to build a powerful new supercomputer. The machine, which is planned to reach a theoretical peak speed of more than 100 trillion calculations a second by 2009, will be used to increase the accuracy of forecasts of weather, floods and ocean conditions by National Centers for Environmental Prediction, part of the National Weather Service. The award comes just a month after the Japanese government completed development on what is currently the world's fastest supercomputer, an achievement that took many computing experts in the United States by surprise. The Japanese machine was built to analyze climate change, including global warming as well as weather and earthquake patterns. The Japanese Earth Simulator was financed by the Japanese government and has been installed at the Earth Simulator Research and Development Center in Yokohama, west of Tokyo. The Japanese government spent $350 million to $400 million developing the system over the last five years. The Japanese computer was striking in part because it achieved significantly higher performance than computers financed by the United States government for simulating nuclear weapons. The Earth Simulator is composed of 640 specialized nodes that are in turn composed of 5,104 processors made by NEC, a Japanese computing and electronics company. The machine has been measured performing up to 35.6 trillion mathematical operations a second. Currently the most powerful American supercomputer, I.B.M.'s ASCI White, simulates nuclear explosions at a government lab in California, performing 12.3 trillion mathematical operations a second. Unlike the new I.B.M. weather supercomputer, which will be used for day-to-day forecasting, the Japanese computer will look at climate change over decades or centuries. The two machines have notably different design philosophies. The Japanese supercomputer employs specialized hardware to do long chains of specialized calculations, while the United States will build a "massively parallel" machine, one using armies of more conventional microprocessors. The new United States computer, which is planned to be in operation next spring, is based on a design similar to a machine that I.B.M. built for the National Centers for Environmental Protection in 1999. The machine, which will be leased from I.B.M. and installed at an I.B.M. computer center in Gaithersburg, Md., will initially have a peak performance of 7.3 teraflops, or trillions of operations a second, and will be scaled up by adding and improving processors through 2009. Under the agreement, the supercomputer will be leased by the government from I.B.M., which will also provide hardware and software support and fast network connections for government agencies. Over the first three years of the contract, I.B.M. officials said the new supercomputer would provide almost five times the speed of the environmental centers' current I.B.M. system and would ultimately provide 48 times the speed. Several American scientists said the award was an important first step in a field that many believe is underfinanced. "It's a historic event," said Larry Smarr, director of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology and an expert on supercomputing. "It shows the U.S. is going to be back in the game for high-performance computing applied to weather and climate issues." Officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the computer would be used principally for weather prediction rather than scientific research on climate change. Nevertheless, weather scientists said it was a crucial component of the nation's scientific weather research program. "The research doesn't make any sense if we can't do the operational work," said Robert Gall, lead scientist for the United States weather research program. "It's all part of the research program that gets us a better weather forecast." N.O.A.A. officials said the I.B.M. machine would significantly improve the precision and accuracy of weather forecasting. For example, in the past while it might have been possible to predict rain in New York City, it will now be possible to predict weather separately for Manhattan and Queens. Dr. Gall said that neither the Japanese Earth Simulator nor the new I.B.M. system would fulfill the dream of meteorologists, a dramatic advance in the precision and accuracy of weather and climate prediction. That would require a computer that would be able to calculate weather about every half-mile over the entire surface of the globe. However, even allowing for the computing advances that will be brought about by Moore's Law - an observation about the increasing power and speed of semiconductors - it will not be possible to build such a machine until 2015, he said. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/01/technology/01SUPE.html?ex=1023946435&ei=1&en=9abe6cdd1674dfda http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2002-06/dc-1c060602.php Contact: Sue Knapp sue.knapp@dartmouth.edu 603-646-3661 Dartmouth College 100,000-year climate pattern linked to Sun's magnetic cycles HANOVER, N.H. - Thanks to new calculations by a Dartmouth geochemist, scientists are now looking at the earth's climate history in a new light. Mukul Sharma, Assistant Professor of Earth Sciences at Dartmouth, examined existing sets of geophysical data and noticed something remarkable: the sun's magnetic activity is varying in 100,000-year cycles, a much longer time span than previously thought, and this solar activity, in turn, may likely cause the 100,000-year climate cycles on earth. This research helps scientists understand past climate trends and prepare for future ones. Published in the June 10 issue of Earth and Planetary Science Letters (Elsevier, volume 199, issues 3-4), Sharma's study combined data on the varying production rates of beryllium 10, an isotope found on earth produced when high-energy galactic cosmic rays bombard our atmosphere, and data on the past variations in the earth's magnetic field intensity. With this information, Sharma calculated variations in solar magnetic activity going back 200,000 years, and he noticed a pattern. Over the last 1 million years, the earth's climate record has revealed a 100,000-year cycle oscillating between relatively cold and warm conditions, and Sharma's data on the sun's magnetic activity corresponded to the earth's ice age history. "Surprisingly, it looks like solar activity is varying in longer time spans than we realized," says Sharma. "We knew about the shorter cycles of solar activity, so maybe these are just little cycles within a larger cycle. Even more surprising is the fact that the glacial and interglacial periods on earth during the last 200,000 years appear to be strongly linked to solar activity." Sharma's calculations suggest that when the sun is magnetically more active, the earth experiences a warmer climate, and vice versa, when the sun is magnetically less active, there is a glacial period. Right now, the earth is in an interglacial period (in between ice ages) that began about 11,000 years ago, and as expected, this is also a time when the estimated solar activity appears to be high. Beryllium 10 is useful for studying the geology from hundreds of thousands of years ago mainly because it has a half-life of about one and a half million years. In addition, there are two key factors that have affected beryllium 10 production over the last 200,000 years: the earth's magnetic field and the sun's magnetic activity. When there are high-intensity solar magnetic storms, more charged particles are interacting with cosmic rays, and less beryllium 10 is produced. Likewise, the earth's magnetic field changes the flux of cosmic rays into and out of the atmosphere. Since the production rate of beryllium 10 and earth's magnetic field intensity are known for the last 200,000 years, Sharma could calculate solar magnetic activity for this time period. "I took sets of existing, independent data and made new comparisons and calculations," says Sharma. Then he went a step further to make a connection with the history of ice ages by looking at oxygen isotopes in the oceans, which reveal the history of how much ice was at the poles and are therefore a measure of average global surface temperature. "I compared the estimated past variations in the solar activity with those of the oxygen isotopes in the ocean. Although there is a strong relationship between solar activity and oxygen isotopic variations, it is too early to say exactly what is the mechanism though which the sun is influencing the terrestrial climate." One explanation of the 100,000-year cycle was offered by the Milankovitch Theory of Ice Ages in the 1940s, which suggested that the cyclical variations in the earth's orbit around the sun result in the earth receiving varying amounts of solar radiation that, in turn, control the climate. This explanation is under dispute because the variations of the solar energy in relation to the changes in orbit are very small. Other current research focuses on past variations in the sun's irradiance, or heat intensity (as opposed to the magnetic activity). Sharma notes that more analysis is needed to test his theory. "I've only looked at 200,000 years. My calculations need to be verified for a million years, for instance. Plus, regarding the current global warming debate, it still needs to be examined if the role of solar activity will exacerbate the rising temperatures that result from carbon dioxide buildup in the atmosphere." ### This work was supported by Dartmouth College, the Max Planck Institute and by a grant from the National Science Foundation --- Sent: Wednesday, March 27, 2002 11:27 PM Subject: News: Earth Crust Data Shows Warming Trends http://www.nationalpost.com/news/national/story.html?f=/stories/20020327 /463946.html National Post: March 27, 2002 Hotter Times On Planet Earth, Researchers Find Crust temperature rising: 'We can now say we truly have global warming' Margaret Munro The Associated Press A team of American and Canadian researchers has found evidence of real global warming: the temperature of the Earth's crust is increasing at a remarkable rate. "We can now say we truly have global warming," says Dr. Hugo Beltrami, a geophysicist at St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia. Until now most data on global warming has been gleaned from the atmosphere, polar icecaps and oceans, but Dr. Beltrami's team looked at continental rocks, which cover about 30% of the planet's surface. The scientists studied 616 deep bore holes that had been drilled into rock formations from Africa to the Arctic and found evidence of a marked rise in temperature over the past 500 years. The surface of continental rocks are, on average, one degree Celsius warmer now than they were five centuries ago, and most of the warming has occurred since 1900, the scientists report in a paper being published in the upcoming issue of the Geophysical Research Letters, a leading geology journal. While one degree may not sound like much, Dr. Beltrami says there is now about as much heat going into the Earth from the atmosphere as there is coming to the surface from the planet's hot molten core. The warming is most pronounced in northern latitudes, Dr. Beltrami says. On Ellesmere Island and in Alaska, ground temperatures are four to five degrees higher than they were in 1500. The rise is having a significant effect on permafrost, turning some northern areas that were once perpetually frozen into "several metres of muck," he says. Dr. Beltrami and his colleagues from the University of Michigan found that more than half of the land's heat gain over the past 500 years came during the 20th century, and 30% since 1950. The new data from the rocks fits with evidence from the oceans and atmosphere showing that all major parts of the Earth's climate system have warmed over the past half-century. The geophysicist's conclusion means that the warming has been truly global. Dr. Beltrami says the historic temperature profile of bore holes is a more reliable reflection of warming trends than tree rings because heat absorbed from the atmosphere by rocks slowly permeates the Earth, leaving a distinct signature in the temperature profile of the rocks as it moves down. "We can plot the heat actually going into the ground," he says. Heat absorbed 100 years ago is now about 150 metres deep, and heat from 300 years ago is between 250-300 metres below ground, depending on the type of rock. The bore holes were up to one kilometre deep, and had been drilled by mining companies and geologists. Greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide generated by the burning of fossil fuels, are believed by many scientists to be responsible for the global warming trend. While the thought of warmer weather in Nova Scotia or Saskatchewan may sound appealing, scientists predict the warming will bring with it a rise in the number of so-called "extreme weather events" such as ice storms, droughts and hurricanes. "That's what worries me the most," Dr. Beltrami says. mmunro@nationalpost.com * * * Copyright 2002 National Post Online ========== ** NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. ** ---------- FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Jan. 19, 2002 http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2002-01/nsfc-nsi011702.php NASA satellite instrument warms up global cooling theory Measurements from a NASA Langley Research Center satellite instrument dispute a recent theory that proposes that clouds in the Tropics might cool the Earth and counteract predictions of global warming. The Langley instrument indicates these clouds would instead slightly strengthen the greenhouse effect to warm the Earth. Scientists at NASA Langley in Hampton, Va., used observations from an instrument called CERES (Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System) on the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite to test the Iris effect-the proposed cooling mechanism. "The Iris effect is a very interesting but controversial idea for how clouds might act to stabilize the climate system. If correct, it would be welcome news for concerns over future climate change," said Bruce Wielicki, CERES principal investigator at NASA Langley. "We tested the Iris hypothesis by looking down at these clouds using the latest generation of satellite data in the Tropics and found the opposite answer. If anything, these clouds appear to slightly destabilize climate." According to the Iris effect, the climatically important canopy of clouds in the Tropics decreases as climate warms. As its size shrinks, so does the area of ocean and land covered by the canopy. With more of the Earth's surface and atmosphere free from heat-trapping clouds, more emitted thermal energy (or heat) can escape to space and, according to the theory, cool the Earth. While a smaller cloud canopy could allow more heat to leave the Earth, it also means more sunlight could reach the surface. In the battle between the cooling of escaping heat and the warming of incoming sunlight, cloud properties determine which one will have a stronger effect on climate. CERES provides the most accurate measurements ever of how much heat clouds trap and how much sunlight they reflect. "We used the cloud observations from CERES, placed them inside the Iris climate model and found a slightly destabilizing effect of these clouds," said Wielicki. "The result is that the Iris effect slightly warms the Earth instead of strongly cooling it." "A recent study by Dennis Hartmann at the University of Washington has seriously challenged whether the Iris decrease in cloud canopy would occur in a warmer climate," Wielicki adds. "Our study takes the next step and shows that, even if the Iris effect decreases the cloud canopy, the resulting change in the planetary energy balance would not act to stabilize the climate system." Bing Lin, a NASA Langley researcher and CERES team member, will present the paper on this research during Session 10 of the 13th Symposium on Global Change and Climate Variations at the American Meteorological Society annual meeting on Wednesday, Jan. 16, at 1:45 p.m. The Journal of Climate published this paper in the January 1, 2002, issue. Designed and managed by NASA Langley, there are CERES instruments aboard the TRMM and Terra satellites. The CERES instruments were built by the TRW Corp., Redondo Beach, Calif. The Iris hypothesis was published by Richard Lindzen and co-authors in the March 2001 issue of Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. ### Images and additional information about CERES are available on the Internet at: http://asd-www.larc.nasa.gov/ceres/ASDceres.html and http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/Sensors/Terra/CERES.html ---------- 2001-35 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: December 12, 2001 Climate Change Could Boost Cotton Yields Contact: Anatta, NCAR Telephone: 303-497-8604 or AGU press room: 415-905-1007 E-mail: anatta@ucar.edu Krishna Ramanujan, NASA Goddard 301-286-3026 or AGU press room: 415-905-1007 kramanuj@pop900.gsfc.nasa.gov BOULDER--A new study by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) has found that cotton yields are likely to increase in the southeastern United States if carbon dioxide levels continue to rise as projected this century and if farmers adapt their agricultural practices to the resulting climate change. The findings are being presented this week in San Francisco at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU). The researchers entered various scenarios into their computer models to simulate the effects of elevated carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere on cotton crop yields. If CO2 emissions increase at their present rate, many scientists believe that the atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases are likely to double compared to pre-industrial levels by the year 2060. Along with climate change, atmospheric CO2 enhances plant growth by stimulating photosynthesis. In one scenario, adaptations to farming practices resulting from a lengthened growing season, elevated CO2- induced climate change, and enhanced plant growth were all factored into model simulations. The results predict that cotton yields would increase by as much as 26-36%. "Cotton is a very important economic crop for U.S. agriculture," says NCAR's Linda Mearns, a co-author of the study. "This is the first time impacts of climate change on cotton production have been examined at this level of detail on a regional scale." Nevertheless, explains NCAR co-author Ruth Doherty, these cotton model projections are simplistic. For example, the climate models project climate change based on an instantaneous doubling of CO2, when in reality such increases would occur gradually over this century, possibly changing the outcomes. Still, in most of the scenarios there was a trend towards increased cotton yields in the future. Two climate models were used in the study--a large-scale global climate model that used 300 by 300 kilometer (186 by 186 mile) grids, and a fine-scale regional climate model that used 50 by 50 kilometer (31 by 31 mile) grids. A climate model is a simplified mathematical representation of the earth's climate system, including data on the physical, geophysical, chemical, and biological processes that govern the climate system. Fine-scale models with higher resolution may be more accurate, but in order to gain information about the future regional climate, results from the global model must be used to initialize and control the regional model. Using these two models, three scenarios were simulated. The first scenario simply looked at the impact that climate change resulting from an instantaneous doubling of CO2 would have on cotton yields in the southeastern United States, including Alabama, Arkansas, northern Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and part of Tennessee. For this scenario the fine-scale model predicted a decrease of 10% in cotton yield over the region, while the large-scale model showed a 4% increase in yields. When the climate change resulting from CO2 doubling was combined with the potential for enhanced cotton plant growth as a result of greater carbon availability, the fine-scale model showed a 5% increase in yields, while the large-scale model predicted a 16% increase. Finally, when the first two factors of CO2 doubling and enhanced growth were combined with farming adaptations, such as planting crops earlier to take advantage of a longer growing season, the fine-scale model predicted a 26% increase, and the large-scale model predicted a 36% increase. The research is part of a larger project that examines the impact of different spatial scales of climate change scenarios on yields of corn, wheat, sorghum, soybeans, and cotton in the southeastern United States. The findings will be published next year in a special issue of the journal Climate Change. NASA and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency funded the study. NCAR's primary sponsor is the National Science Foundation. -The End- Visuals: A color graphic illustrating possible future cotton yields in the southeastern United States may be downloaded at the NCAR news site: http://www.ucar.edu/communications/newsreleases/2001/cotton.html, or at the NASA Goddard Top Story site: http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/20011210cottonclimate.html UCAR and NCAR news: http://www.ucar.edu/communications/newsreleases/2001. --- Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2001 02:32:00 -0700 From: Bill Thorson Subject: Verification of Bill Gray's 2001 Hurricane Forecast THIRD CONSECUTIVE YEAR OF ON-TARGET PREDICTIONS FROM RENOWNED HURRICANE FORECAST TEAM AT COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY [ NOTE: Forecast totals are in the attached chart. The complete ] [ hurricane forecast and related research and related research ] [ and press releases are available on the World Wide Web at: ] [ http://tropical.atmos.colostate.edu/forecasts ] [ ] [ An initial forecast for the 2002 hurricane season is scheduled ] [ for posting on the Web on Dec. 7, 2001. ] [ ] [ For more information contact: ] [ Jennifer Dimas phone: (970) 491-1194 ] [ e-mail: Jennifer.Dimas@colostate.edu ] FORT COLLINS- For the third consecutive year, Colorado State University hurricane forecaster William Gray and his colleagues were on target with their predictions for the hurricane season. This was an unusual year in that most of the activity occurred September through November. The first hurricane did not form until Sept. 8 the latest-forming first hurricane since 1984. Gray attributes the late start to high August Atlantic basin surface pressure and stronger than usual west Atlantic subsidence and dryness. Other unusual occurrences included one of the most active periods during the last 50 years during October and November, with four hurricanes and two major hurricanes. In addition, two hurricanes happened simultaneously in November, the first time that has happened since 1932. In early June and early August 2001, Gray and his colleagues predicted this season would have 12 named storms, seven hurricanes and three intense hurricanes for the season. As of today, this year's hurricane season (which officially ends Nov. 30) has seen 14 named storms, eight hurricanes and four intense hurricanes. In an average year, there are 9.3 named storms, 5.8 hurricanes and 2.2 intense hurricanes. Gray and his team were close to the mark in predicting other season activity indicators. For example, the team predicted correctly that this season would have five intense hurricane days. An intense hurricane day consists of 4 six-hour periods in which winds exceed 110 miles per hour. The team called for 60 named storm days; this season saw 59 named storm days with sustained winds greater than 39 miles per hour. The team predicted there would be 30 hurricane days, but there were only 24 such days where winds exceed 73 miles per hour. Net Tropical Cyclone Activity (NTC), a measure of the season's overall activity, was predicted at 120 and measured at 132. The appearance of four Atlantic basin major hurricanes this year (Erin, Felix, Iris and Michelle) supports Gray and his colleagues' contention that there has been a strong, multi-decade upswing of major hurricane activity that began in 1995. This upswing will likely continue for two or three more decades, and due to the large increase in coastal population in the U.S. and Caribbean, the increased activity will bring unprecedented hurricane-spawned destruction. While some may attribute the increased Atlantic basin activity to global warming, Gray points out that there actually have been fewer hurricanes in the Pacific and Indian Oceans during the past seven years. The net global tropical cyclone activity has actually experienced a small reduction during the last seven years. Gray and his team believe that there is no objective way to attribute the sharp upturn of Atlantic basin hurricane activity since 1995 to human induced global warming. Gray and his colleagues instead believe that long-term (25 to 50 year) shifts in the Atlantic Ocean thermohaline circulation pattern is the primary cause for the increase in Atlantic hurricane activity since 1995. After a quarter-century quiet period between 1970-94 in which the Atlantic Ocean thermohaline circulation was weak, measurements such as sea surface temperature and salinity in the North Atlantic indicate that this circulation system rapidly picked up strength in mid-1995 and has been running strong since that time. "The upturn we've seen in Atlantic hurricanes and activity the last seven years has been remarkable," said Gray. As a result, 1995-2001 are the seven most active consecutive years on record, with 93 named storms, 57 hurricanes and 27 major hurricanes. Gray points out, however, that of the 27 Atlantic basin major hurricanes (Saffir/Simpson Category 3-4-5 hurricanes) during this seven year period, only three (Opal, Bret and Fran) have crossed the U.S. coastline. During the last century, 73 of 218 major hurricanes (one in three) made landfall. By the usual landfall to Atlantic basin numbers, the U.S. should have experienced about nine major hurricane landfall events in the past seven years. "We've been fortunate that an upper-air trough has been located along the U.S. East Coast during a substantial part of the last seven seasons," Gray said. "The fortuitous frequent location of the upper-level East Coast trough has caused a large number of the northwest moving major hurricanes to be recurved to the north before they reach the U.S. coastline. But climatology will eventually right itself and we must expect a great increase in landfalling major hurricanes in the coming decades." For a second consecutive year, there was not a U.S. hurricane landfall event. This has not occurred since the consecutive seasons of 1981-82. However, three Gulf of Mexico tropical storms (Allison, Barry and Gabrielle) made landfall on the U.S. coast. Barry and Gabrielle were just 6 mph short of being classified as hurricanes and caused significant coastal destruction. "Our forecast of an above average probability of U.S. hurricane landfall did not materialize this year," Gray said. "Landfall probability is a different type of forecast, which requires a four to five year period or active vs. inactive years to judge skill. For the second year in a row, a separate August forecast was made. We anticipated below-average August activity but above-average September and October activity. But we could not foresee that the early (June-August) vs. the late season activity differences would be as large as they were." Now in his 18th year of forecasting Atlantic Basin storms, Gray and his colleagues, Chris Landsea, Eric Blake, John Sheaffer and Philip Klotzbach, have shown that recent ongoing research indicates that there are indeed meaningful multi-month precursor signals for the prediction of Atlantic basin hurricane activity and U.S. landfall probability. They believe they are continuing to develop a better understanding of our country's hurricane problem through the insights derived from making these forecasts. "We feel our ongoing forecast research will allow us to continue to improve our predictive skill," Gray said. Gray and his team will be issuing their first prediction for the 2002 season on Dec. 7 with planned updates in early April, early June and early August 2002. Last year, the team predicted 11 named storms, seven hurricanes and three intense hurricanes. That 2000 season concluded with 14 named storms, eight hurricanes and three intense hurricanes. VERIFICATION OF THE GRAY RESEARCH TEAM HURRICANE FORECAST FOR 2001 SEASON Dec '00 Apr7 Jun7 Aug7 Actual 2001 Named Storms (9.3)* 9 10 12 12 14 Named Storm Days (46.9) 45 50 60 60 59 Hurricanes (5.8) 5 6 7 7 8 Hurricane Days (23.7) 20 25 30 30 24 Intense Hurricanes (2.2) 2 2 3 3 4 Intense Hurricane Days (4.7) 4 4 5 5 5 Hurricane Destruction Potential (70.6) 65 65 75 75 73 Maximum Potential Destruction (61.7) 60 60 70 70 83 Net Tropical Cyclone Activity (100%) 90 100 120 120 132 * Number in ( ) represents average year totals based on 1950-1990 data. ** Hurricane Destruction Potential measures a hurricane's potential for wind- and ocean-surge damage. Tropical Storm, Hurricane and Intense Hurricane Days are four six-hour periods where storms attain wind speeds appropriate to their category on the Saffir-Simpson scale. ------------------------------ Scientific American Feature Article Dissent in the Maelstrom November 2001 Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 10:48:48 -0400 Dissent in the Maelstrom Maverick meteorologist Richard S. Lindzen keeps right on arguing that human-induced global warming isn't a problem Adviser to senators, think tanks and at least some of the president's men, Richard S. Lindzen holds a special place in today's heated debate about global warming. An award-winning scientist and a member of the National Academy of Sciences, he holds an endowed chair at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is the nation's most prominent and vocal scientist in doubting whether human activities pose any threat at all to the climate. Blunt and acerbic, Lindzen ill-tolerates naïveté. So it was with considerable trepidation recently that I parked in the driveway of his suburban home. A portly man with a bushy beard and a receding hairline, Lindzen ushered me into his living room. Using a succession of cigarettes for emphasis, he explains that he never intended to be outspoken on climate change. It all began in the searing summer of 1988. At a high-profile congressional hearing, physicist James E. Hansen of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies went public with his view: that scientists knew, "with a high degree of confidence," that human activities such as burning fossil fuel were warming the world. Lindzen was shocked by the media accounts that followed. "I thought it was important," he recalls, "to make it clear that the science was at an early and primitive stage and that there was little basis for consensus and much reason for skepticism." What he thought would be a couple of months in the public eye has turned into more than a decade of climate skepticism. "I did feel a moral obligation," he remarks of the early days, "although now it is more a matter of being stuck with a role." It may be just a role, but Lindzen still plays it with gusto. His wide-ranging attack touches on computer modeling, atmospheric physics and research on past climate. His views appear in a steady stream of congressional testimonies, newspaper op-eds and public appearances. Earlier this year he gave a tutorial on climate change to President George W. Bush's cabinet. It's difficult to untangle how Lindzen's views differ from those of other scientists because he questions so much of what many others regard as settled. He fiercely disputes the conclusions of this past spring's report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)--largely considered to be the definitive scientific assessment of climate change--and those of a recent NAS report that reviewed the panel's work. (Lindzen was a lead author of one chapter of the IPCC report and was an author of the NAS report.) But, according to him, the country's leading scientists (who, he says, concur with him) prefer not to wade into the troubled waters of climate change: "It's the kind of pressure that the average scientist doesn't need." Tom M. L. Wigley, a prominent climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, says it is "demonstrably incorrect" that top researchers are keeping quiet. "The best people in the world," he observes, have contributed to the IPCC report. Lindzen agrees with the IPCC and most other climate scientists that the world has warmed about 0.5 degree Celsius over the past 100 years or so. He agrees that human activities have increased the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by about 30 percent. He parts company with the others when it comes to whether these facts are related. It's not that humans have no effect at all on climate. "They do," he admits, though with as much impact on the environment as when "a butterfly shuts its wings." The IPCC report states that "most of the observed warming over the last 50 years" is of human origin. It says that late 20th-century temperatures shot up above anything the earth had experienced in the previous 1,000 years. Michael E. Mann, a geologist at the University of Virginia and a lead author of the IPCC's past-climate chapter, calls the spike "a change that is inconsistent with natural variability." Lindzen dismisses this analysis by questioning the method for determining historical temperatures. For the first 600 years of the 1,000-year chronology, he claims, researchers used tree rings alone to gauge temperature and only those from four separate locations. He calls the method used to turn tree-ring width into temperature hopelessly flawed. Mann was flabbergasted when I questioned him about Lindzen's critique, which he called "nonsense" and "hogwash." A close examination of the IPCC report itself shows, for instance, that trees weren't the sole source of data--ice cores helped to reconstruct the temperatures of the first 600 years, too. And trees were sampled from 34 independent sites in a dozen distinct regions scattered around the globe, not four. Past climate isn't the only point of divergence. Lindzen also says there is little cause for concern in the future. The key to his optimism is a parameter called "climate sensitivity." This variable represents the increase in global temperature expected if the amount of carbon dioxide in the air doubles over preindustrial levels--a level the earth is already one third of the way toward reaching. Whereas the IPCC and the NAS calculate climate sensitivity to be somewhere between 1.5 and 4.5 degrees C, Lindzen insists that it is in the neighborhood of 0.4 degree. The IPCC and the NAS derived the higher range after incorporating positive feedback mechanisms. For instance, warmer temperatures will most likely shrink the earth's snow and ice cover, making the planet less reflective and thus hastening warming, and will also probably increase evaporation of water. Water vapor, in fact, is the main absorber of heat in the atmosphere. But such positive feedbacks "have neither empirical nor theoretical foundations," Lindzen told the U.S. Senate commerce committee this past May. The scientist says negative, not positive, feedback rules the day. One hypothesis he has postulated is that increased warming actually dries out certain parts of the upper atmosphere. Decreased water vapor would in turn temper warming. Goddard's Hansen says that by raising this possibility Lindzen "has done a lot of good for the climate discussion." He hastens to add, however, "I'm very confident his basic criticism--that climate models overestimate climate sensitivity--is wrong." In March, Lindzen published what he calls "potentially the most important" paper he's written about negative feedback from water vapor. In it, he concludes that warming would decrease tropical cloud cover. Cloud cover is a complicated subject. Depending on factors that change by the minute, clouds can cool (by reflecting sunlight back into space) or warm (by trapping heat from the earth). Lindzen states that a reduction in tropical cloudiness would produce a marked cooling effect overall and thus serve as a stabilizing negative feedback. But three research teams say Lindzen's paper is flawed. For example, his research was based on data collected from satellite images of tropical clouds. Bruce A. Wielicki of the NASA Langley Research Center believes that the images were not representative of the entire tropics. Using data from a different satellite, Wielicki and his group conclude, in a paper to appear in the Journal of Climate, that, on balance, warmer tropical clouds would have a slight heating, not a cooling, effect. Looking back at the past decade of climate science, many researchers say computer models have improved, estimates of past climate are more accurate, and uncertainty is being reduced. Lindzen is not nearly so sanguine. In his mind the case for global warming is as poor as it was when his crusade began, in 1988. Climate research is, he insists, "heavily polluted by political rhetoric, with evidence remaining extremely weak." To Lindzen, apparently, the earth will take care of itself. --- EARTH'S BECOMING A GREENER GREENHOUSE NASA satellite data suggest that for more than two decades there's been a gradual greening of the northern latitudes of Earth. Researchers confirm that plant life seen above 40 degrees north latitude, which represents a line stretching from New York to Madrid to Beijing, has been growing more vigorously since 1981. One suspected cause is rising temperatures possibly linked to the buildup of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere. Over this same time period, parts of the Northern Hemisphere have become much greener and the growing season has increased by several days. Further, Eurasia appears to be greening more than North America, with more lush vegetation for longer periods of time. The results of this NASA-funded research will appear in the September 16 issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research - Atmospheres. "When we looked at temperature and satellite vegetation data, we saw that year-to-year changes in growth and duration of the growing season of northern vegetation are tightly linked to year-to-year changes in temperature," Liming Zhou of Boston University said. The area of vegetation has not extended, but the existing vegetation has increased in density. The authors also looked at the differences in vegetation growth between NorthAmerica and Eurasia, since the patterns and magnitudes of warming are different on the two continents. The greenness data from satellites were strongly correlated with temperature data from thousands of meteorological stations on both continents. The Eurasian greening was especially persistent over a broad area from central Europe through Siberia to far-east Russia, where most of the vegetation is forests and woodlands. North America, in comparison, shows a fragmented pattern of change notable only in the forests of the East and grasslands of the upper Midwest. Dramatic changes in the timing of both the appearance and fall of leaves are recorded in these two decades of satellite data. The authors report a growing season in Eurasia that is now nearly 18 days longer. Spring arrives a week early and autumn is delayed by 10 days. In North America, the growing season appears to be as much as 12 days longer. The researchers used a temperature data set developed from the Global Historical Climate Network. Dr. James Hansen, of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, developed this data set and said, "The data were compiled from several thousand meteorological stations in the United States and around the world. The stations also include many rural sites where the data are collected by cooperative private observers." Scientists believe the results indicate a greener greenhouse. "This is an important finding because of possible implications to the global carbon cycle," said Ranga Myneni of Boston University. "However, more research is needed to determine how much carbon is being absorbed, and how much longer it will continue." Carbon dioxide is a main greenhouse gas and is suspected of playing a role in rising global temperatures. If the northern forests are greening, they may already be absorbing carbon -- a process that can impact global temperature changes. Researchers used the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) to help determine the "greening" of plant life. Dr. Compton Tucker, of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., is a co-author of the report and developed NDVI to analyze spectral data collected by orbiting weather satellites. This work was made possible through funding by NASA Headquarters' Earth Science Enterprise, a long-term research program dedicated to understanding how human-induced and natural changes affect our global environment. Additional information is available on the Internet at: http://cybele.bu.edu http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/20010904greenhouse.html -end- * * * NASA press releases and other information are available automatically by sending an Internet electronic mail message to domo@hq.nasa.gov. In the body of the message (not the subject line) users should type the words "subscribe press-release" (no quotes). The system will reply with a confirmation via E-mail of each subscription. A second automatic message will include additional information on the service. NASA releases also are available via CompuServe using the command GO NASA. To unsubscribe from this mailing list, address an E-mail message to domo@hq.nasa.gov, leave the subject blank, and type only "unsubscribe press-release" (no quotes) in the body of the message. -- "Dust storm spreads haze across western states" (Source: Associated Press, 4/17/01) DENVER - A dust storm that began in Mongolia and picked up industrial pollution from China has spread a haze across a quarter of the U.S. mainland, experts said Tuesday. The whitish haze has been seen from Calgary, Alberta, to Arizona to Aspen, Colo., where weekend levels of particulate - matter that reduces visibility and can cause respiratory problems - quadrupled from the previous weekend. Gene Feldman, an oceanographer from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., said aircraft have been monitoring matter in the dust clouds. "At one time, this dust cloud was bigger than Japan," he said. Russ Schnell, director of observatory operations for National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Boulder, said the cloud will reach the East Coast but should dissipate in the next several days. In late 1998, scientists claimed to have documented the spread of industrial pollution from China to the United States, where it caused pollution levels as high as two-thirds of federal health limits. "This storm is a godsend to pollution researchers," Schnell said. "People are finally realizing that what we have been saying for years is true. Pollution from Asia is being carried across the oceans." The two experts said it was unusual for such matter to be so visible to the naked eye. In Aspen, particulate levels measured 58 millionths of a gram per cubic meter of air, compared with 14 millionths of a gram a week earlier. "We had the same kind of haze when Mount St. Helen's erupted but the particulate didn't come down to the ground level as much," said Lee Cassin, director of Aspen's environmental health department. //end// -----> Sent: Friday, April 13, 2001 10:36 AM Subject: Bush Budget Falls Far Short on Science for Environmental Decisionmaking HTML version of this update can be found at http://www.cnie.org/Updates/96.htm BUSH BUDGET FALLS FAR SHORT ON SCIENCE FOR ENVIRONMENTAL DECISIONMAKING NATIONAL COUNCIL FOR SCIENCE AND THE ENVIRONMENT EXPRESSES EXTREME DISAPPOINTMENT April 13, 2001 WASHINGTON, DC. The National Council for Science and the Environment (NCSE), a broad-based coalition of nearly 500 scientific, academic, business, environmental and governmental organizations expressed "extreme disappointment" at the initial budget released today by President Bush. The budget falls far short of President Bush's campaign pledge to place a high priority on investing in science as a basis for effective environmental decisionmaking. Among the highlights of the Bush budget with respect to science for the environment are: * A cut in the research budget of the National Science Foundation, the Nation's leading funder of academic research about the environment * A debilitating cut of 9% on the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), including a 21% cut in the Water Division and termination of programs such as Water Resources Research Institutes and Urban Dynamics Program * Elimination of the Smithsonian Institution's Conservation and Environmental Research Center, which conducts world-class research on captive breeding of endangered species and has trained thousands of conservation leaders * Cuts and terminations of environmental science programs at National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Agriculture and elsewhere * Elimination of environmental information programs, including EPA's project EMPACT, USGS's National Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII), Center for Biological Informatics, Earth Science Information Management and Delivery. "These cuts and terminations are in opposition to the Bush Administration's often-repeated statements to base decisions on sound science" stated Dr. Peter Saundry, the Council's Executive Director. "The Bush Administration has stated that insufficient science is the reason for delayed decisions about climate change and arsenic in drinking water. Yet, this budget delays the time when they have enough science to make decisions on these and other important environmental issues." On March 8, the Council had sent a letter to President Bush urging the new president to make good on a campaign pledge to instruct his administration to place a high priority on investing in science as a basis for effective environmental decisionmaking. The letter was co-signed by more than 130 college and university presidents, scientific, business, and environmental leaders from throughout the country. In their letter to President Bush, the NCSE-led coalition told the Administration that additional funding must be provided for scientific programs in order to: * assess what is known about the environment, * better understand the environment, * provide scientific information about the environment, and * support science-based education about the environment. The National Council estimates total federal spending on environmental research and development to be about $5 billion in the current fiscal year. A preliminary look at the Bush budget suggests that this number may shrink by hundreds of millions of dollars. "In order to protect our environment while growing our economy, science spending should be going up, not down," according to Dr. Saundry. National Council Plans Earth Day Release of Report to Assist Science Policymakers Foreseeing the need to assist the Administration and the Congress in their efforts to make timely and science-based decisions on environmental issues, the Council had convened a conference last December at the National Academy of Sciences for just that purpose. The report of the landmark conference, Improving the Scientific Basis for Environmental Decisionmaking, details recommendations to the government by 14 expert working groups which met during the conference to debate such topics as global climate change, biotechnology, and population. The report will be released on Earth Day, April 22. NCSE and supportive Members of Congress will hold a briefing in the House Science Committee Hearing room Thursday morning April 26. Also taking place during this week will be a briefing with supporting Senators. The specific time and place for this hearing are still to be determined. The National Council for Science and the Environment has been working to improve the scientific basis for environmental decisionmaking since 1990. The Council brings diverse communities and stakeholders together to pursue its vision of a society where environmental decisions are based on an accurate understanding of science, and both its' potential and its limitations. Most recently, the Council helped to stimulate the National Science Foundation's new long-term environment science initiative, a milestone effort that seeks to attain an additional $1 billion-per-year for environmental research, knowledge assessment, and education grants. For a copy of the letter and signatures, updated information about the release of the NCSE report, other programs sponsored by NCSE, and access to the NCSE National Library for the Environment, consult the NCSE website at: http://www.ncseonline.org. -- --- FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: February 7, 2001 Research Aircraft Finds Springtime Ozone Voids above Arctic Surface Contact: Anatta Telephone: 303-497-8604 Fax: 303-497-8610 E-mail: anatta@ucar.edu BOULDER--Data gathered last spring have revealed long swaths of the lower atmosphere nearly empty of ozone over northern latitude seas, say scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). An instrument-laden C-130 research aircraft observed the ozone loss while flying at extremely low altitudes over Hudson Bay, Baffin Bay, and parts of the Arctic Ocean. NCAR led the experiment, with participation by NASA and university researchers and funding from the National Science Foundation, NCAR's primary sponsor. Last spring's aircraft observations were the first to document ozone loss over large areas of the sub-Arctic, including Hudson Bay. The springtime absence of surface ozone has been observed since the mid- 1980s at Alert, Canada, a research station on the northern tip of Ellesmere Island. In the stratosphere, the ozone layer protects life below by blocking out harmful solar radiation. In the troposphere (the lower six to nine miles of the atmosphere) ozone is a common pollutant that damages the human respiratory system, plants, crops, and some materials. Less ozone near the surface sounds like a good thing, but scientists are concerned. "If there were no ozone anywhere at the surface, it would be terrible," says NCAR scientist Brian Ridley, who flew on most of the C-130 missions. Although ozone is a pollutant, it is also an important source of the OH radical, a chemical species that removes many pollutants from the earth's atmosphere with impressive efficiency. "Globally these short, shallow episodes at the Arctic are not threatening," he says, "except that they show us how much we still don't know about atmospheric chemistry." On a research flight last April, the aircraft flew 465 miles--an hour in the air--through a region of almost nonexistent ozone (less than 1 part per billion) over Hudson Bay. Ozone levels in the Northern Hemisphere troposphere are normally 30-45 parts per billion. Scientists suspect these shallow ozone voids disappear quickly with the arrival of ozone-rich air from farther south or from higher altitudes. Surface ozone loss occurs when the springtime sun returns to the Arctic, stimulating photochemical processes that have been dormant during the dark winter months. A prime suspect in the ozone- destruction mystery is bromine, whose likely source is sea salt. Satellite-borne instruments have measured extensive bromine at high latitudes, but scientists are still puzzling over what triggers and then maintains bromine production throughout the spring. The flights were the core of an experiment called Tropospheric Ozone Production about the Spring Equinox (TOPSE). The aircraft made seven missions last spring from Broomfield, Colorado, to Churchill, Manitoba, stopping in Winnipeg for refueling. It continued on to Thule, Greenland, and then north to Alert. During each 6,000-mile round trip, the plane rose and dipped to gather data at various altitudes. Scientists found ozone voids on 8 of the aircraft's 32 low-altitude flights above Hudson Bay, Lincoln Sea, Baffin Bay, and the Arctic Ocean. Because the land is consistently mountainous, low- level flights were possible only above frozen bodies of water. During flights at higher altitudes (10,000-20,000 feet), a NASA lidar instrument confirmed the existence of ozone-depleted air near the surface. NCAR is managed by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, a consortium of more than 65 universities offering Ph.D.s in atmospheric and related sciences. -The End- Visuals: A photo of the aircraft and caption are available at ftp://ftp.ucar.edu/communications. Filenames: TOPSE-C-130.tif; TOPSE- C-130.tif caption. UCAR and NCAR news: http://www.ucar.edu/communications/newsreleases/2001. To subscribe via e-mail send name, title, affiliation, postal address, fax, and phone number to butterwo@ucar.edu. --- January 25, 2001 Higher ocean temperatures linked to cooling in Midwest CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - While Earth as a whole has warmed during the last half-century, much of the continental United States has grown slightly colder. The trend toward cooler temperatures in the central and eastern United States is due to warmer ocean temperatures, a University of Illinois researcher says. "Although portions of the U.S. have failed to get warmer, they have gotten cloudier," said Walter Robinson, a UI professor of atmospheric sciences. "Our models suggest there is a strong correlation between this increased cloudiness and higher sea-surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific Ocean." http://www.eurekalert.org/releases/uiuc-hoc011901.html Past climate change effects on mammals may mirror global warming impact A thousands-of-years-old peek at the effects of climate change on small mammals in the western United States may provide a snapshot of the future impact of global warming on animal populations. When the climate of the Great Basin of the western U.S. shifted dramatically and became more arid between 8,300 and 5,000 years ago, the number of small-mammal species plummeted, with some becoming locally extinct, according to University of Washington archaeologist Donald Grayson. In a study published in the current issue of the Journal of Biogeography, Grayson also reported that the population balance among small mammals was substantially altered, with arid-loving kangaroo rats becoming the dominant species. http://www.eurekalert.org/releases/uow-pcc011001.html Researchers craft model that provides reasons for climate-change observations A first-ever study by a Penn State researcher creates a model incorporating biological factors to quantify processes behind ecological responses to climate change, moving the field of study beyond its previous observational limits and providing a way to analyze what contributes to the earlier timing of spring events. A paper published in the 7 January issue of Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, B by a team led by Eric Post, assistant professor of biology at Penn State, reveals flowering plants in Norway bloom earlier after warmer winters. More importantly, the paper provides a model for why that occurs. http://www.eurekalert.org/releases/ps-rcm121200.html January 18, 2001 While surface temperatures across most of the globe are on the rise, the eastern U.S. appears to be slowly cooling. Scientists ay the trend could be a result of increasing cloud cover triggered by warming Pacific waters. http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast18jan_1.htm?list80134 Scientists say that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is retreating more slowly than they thought. In fact, it may have been growing just 8,000 years ago -- long after the end of the most recent Ice Age. http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2000/ast27dec_1.htm?list80134 After reaching record-breaking proportions earlier this year the ozone hole over Antarctica has made a surprisingly hasty retreat. http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2000/ast12dec_1.htm?list80134 December 6, 2000 Recent satellite images reveal two new icebergs floating off the Antarctic coast. The icy behemoths are fragments of the Ninnis Glacier. http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2000/ast05dec_1.htm?list80134 --- August 22, 2000 "I don't know if anybody in history ever got to 90 degrees north to be greeted by water, not ice." - DR. MALCOLM C. MCKENNA, who was aboard an icebreaker that found open water at the North Pole. Full Story: Ages-Old Polar Icecap Is Melting, Scientists Find http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/science/081900sci-climate-pole.html --- 11 AUGUST 2000 Contact: Tom Frost tfrost@facstaff.wisc.edu 715-356-9494 University of Wisconsin-Madison Wisconsin lake study shows persistence of acid rain effects Little Rock Lake, the site of a landmark study on the effects of acid rain, has been taken to chemical hell and back, and seemingly recovered from the trip. The University of Wisconsin-Madison study, spanning two decades, found that while the chemistry of the lake corrected itself naturally - and fairly quickly -- the biological changes took much longer to bounce back. This year, the northern Wisconsin lake came full circle, returning to its natural condition after its pH levels were dramatically altered beginning in 1984. Scientists separated the hourglass-shaped lake into two basins with a mesh curtain, keeping one side in its natural state while the other was slowly acidified. >From 1984 to 1990, the test basin was taken from an original pH of 6.1 down in two-year intervals to 5.6, 5.2 and 4.7. Then it was allowed to recover without intervention. It essentially became a tale of two lakes, as the character of the acidified water began to dramatically change, says Thomas Frost, director of the study and site manager of Trout Lake Station in Vilas County. Frost reported his findings this month at the annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America. "We found that the pH levels had a controlling but indirect influence for nearly every biological factor in the lake," says Frost. "The nature of the food web changed completely." Sport fish in the lake, such as bass and perch, survived the change but the offspring of fish were unable to survive. The zooplankton in the lake, a critical part of the food chain, underwent a complete revolution. Some once-rare zooplankton took over the lake, while once-dominant species almost vanished. The acidified lake became almost crystal clear in the process, and ultraviolet light penetration increased, he says. Chemical changes helped a long, filamentous algae nicknamed "elephant snot" to spread across the lake bottom. Mercury in fish increased with acidification, but study of the lake's recovery has shown that mercury deposition has declined recently. In the end, Frost says, the lake showed a remarkable resilience by returning to its pre-disturbance conditions. But the biological changes lagged behind the chemistry, taking several years longer to reach its previous balance. "The entire ecosystem of the lake is much more resilient than individual species," he says. "Some species were decimated and others thrived, but the sum-total of life in the lake stayed the same." The project - which took an act of the state Legislature to enable back in the early 1980s - will be a useful marker for the country as acid rain levels slowly begin to improve. In the northeast U.S., where lakes were most vulnerable to acid rain, the average pH of rainfall went from about 4.0 at its worst points in the 1980s to around 4.8 today. The improvements are in large part thanks to the Clean Air Act's capping of sulfur dioxide emissions. But that good news is tempered by the evidence from Little Rock that lakes recover slowly from biological changes driven by acidity. Frost says other studies of northeast U.S. lakes have found little improvement in pH levels. The study also demonstrated that what was intended as a single, isolated stress, acid rain, actually created other stresses on the health of the ecosystem. While the sulfuric acid caps have been an environmental success story, Frost says another major contributor to acid rain, nitric acid, is prevalent in the atmosphere and warrants further study. ### The study was supported by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the National Science Foundation. It built on a long tradition of whole lake experiments conducted by lake researchers at UW-Madison. Brian Mattmiller, 608-262-9772 http://www.eurekalert.org/releases/uwm-wls081100.html --- Wednesday August 2, 2000 U.S. Proposes New Strategy to Fight Global Warming http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/science/080200sci-environ-warm.h tml US Wants to Bend the Rules For Carbon Dioxide From the Seattle P-I http://seattlep-i.nwsource.com/national/warm02.shtml . Land and Trees That Lock Up Carbon Would Be Counted As Credit From the San Francisco Chronicle. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2000/0 8/02/MN14311.DTL . Increased Carbon Reduces Nutritional Value of Plants (7-18-00) From the Seattle Times. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/news/health-science/html98/leav18m_2000 0718.html . Carbon Sequestration Not A Magic Bullet by Donella Meadows (opinion) http://www.tidepool.org/GC/gc2.25.00.cfm HEAT-- > MORE INTENSE HYDROLOGICAL CYCLES -- > MORE DROUGHTS, FLOODS, BLIZZARDS, FIRES . China's Drought/Tokyo's Heat! (Weathernews) China: Parts of the Songhua River in Heilongjang are running dry - and environmentalists warn that the river might follow in the path of the Yellow River - and lose its ability to supply water to millions of people in the northeast Chinese province. http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/wni/20000724/we/world_forecast_summary_july _24_china_s_drought_tokyo_s_heat__1.html MODIS is already making some surprising observations, finding that there was far less snow than expected over parts of the Midwest and western United States during a week this spring. The reduced levels of snow could have a significant impact on parts of the United States, as some areas rely on snow that accumulates in the mountains for up to 75 percent of their drinking water. http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/space/20000802/sc/snow_job_for_eye_in_the_s ky_1.html Drought in West puts fisheries in hot water http://europe.cnn.com/2000/NATURE/08/01/drought.trout.enn/ Grasshoppers ravage Texas farmland In what could amount to a $200 million plague in 2000, grasshoppers are ravaging Central Texas farmland that is already besieged by drought, state agriculture officials said Tuesday. One reason for the population explosion is that a moisture-craving fungus that usually helps control grasshoppers isn't flourishing this year because of drought, officials said. http://www.enn.com/news/wire-stories/2000/08/08022000/s_30104.asp E.U. grants 1.7 million euros for Ethiopia drought relief http://europe.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/africa/08/01/ethiopia.aid.reut/index.ht ml Drought imperils 20 million in Africa The lives of over 20 million people in the Horn of Africa could be at risk because of food shortages if the current crisis ``is allowed to spiral into a true famine,'' a top foreign aid official said today. http://www.enn.com/news/wire-stories/2000/08/08012000/ap_drought_30077.a sp Nebraska's farmers pushed to brink - Nebraska is a leader in combating drought, but it's being tested by the current dry spell. By Laurent Belsie http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/2000/08/02/f-p4s1.shtml Food desperately short in parts of N.Korea North Korea's food supplies have improved over the past year but in some areas people are desperately short of food, a U.N. official said on today. North Korea said in June that drought had struck again. This renewed concerns over the food supply after a famine that, according to a U.S. congressional report, killed an estimated 2 million people since 1995. http://www.enn.com/news/wire-stories/2000/08/08012000/reu_nkorea_30050.a sp Weather fuels record wildfires in U.S. - Wildfires have scorched nearly 3.5 million acres of the United States so far this year, the largest amount of land burned in the country since 1988. And weather once again has played a major role, determining speed, direction and intensity of the wildfires. Worse yet, forecasters don't show an end to the severe drought conditions plaguing the western United States. http://enn.com/news/enn-stories/2000/08/08022000/nwsfire_30085.asp Drought-hit Afghans face danger from mines Land mines are threatening the lives of thousands of Afghan families displaced by a severe drought in the country's north, a Western demining agency said today. "Most of the lives of some 40,000 families, who have fled their houses in the Alberz mountains due to the drought and lack of water, are at risk from mines. It is a big tragedy," said Homayon Farid, head of Halo Trust, a British demining agency. http://www.enn.com/news/wire-stories/2000/07/07302000/reu_afgandrought_1 5205.asp (July 26, 2000) - Nairobi - The water crisis that has exploded in Nairobi has been gathering for many years. Populations in East Africa are growing; clean water is becoming ever scarcer; water pollution is on the increase, and conflicts over water resources are becoming entrenched in the region. http://www.africanews.org/east/stories/20000726/20000726_feat2.html Three US states to get discounted air conditioners (Reuters Securities) The Energy Department said on Tuesday it has reached an agreement with private companies to make more than 49,000 air conditioners available at a reduced price to low-income residents in three Southern states that are suffering through an intense summer heat wave. http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/000801/n01276789.html Temperatures Soar Throughout Calif. (Associated Press) Californians were asked to voluntarily shut off their air conditioners and lights as a fourth day of soaring temperatures frazzled the state's power grid. http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20000802/us/california_heatwave_1.html South Bend, Indiana-area farmers still hope for more rain http://www.enn.com/news/wire-stories/2000/07/07302000/krt_drought_15193. asp One year ago on Tuesday 2 August 2000: A heat wave that had gripped the nation since mid-July finally broke; authorities attributed nearly 200 deaths to the heat and humidity. 7 Die in Latest Romania Heat Wave (Associated Press) A heat wave sweeping southeastern Europe has triggered forest fires in Greece and Bulgaria and caused the deaths of at least seven people in Romania over the past three days, officials said Friday. - Jul 28 http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20000728/wl/romania_heat_wave_1.html Mudslides And Floods Kill 28 in Brazil (Reuters) Mudslides triggered by five days of torrential rains in Brazil's northeast have killed at least 28 people and forced 90,000 to abandon their homes in the region's worst flooding in 25 years, officials said on Wednesday. http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000802/wl/brazil_mudslides_dc_3.html Cambodia Floods Kill 15, Damage Put at Over $6 Million (Reuters) Cambodia said on Monday that severe floods, which have been wreaking havoc across the country since early July, have left as many as 15 dead and caused more than $6 million in damage. http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000731/hl/flood_1.html Vietnam Flood Toll Hits 33, Threat to Rice (Reuters) Heavy rain and floods have killed at least 33 people in northern Vietnam in the past week and threaten the rice crop in at least a fifth of the southern Mekong Delta rice bowl, officials and media reports said. http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000725/wl/vietnam_floods_dc_2.html Senate Votes Farm Aid, Says No More This Year (Reuters) The Senate voted for the second time this year to send special aid to U.S. farmers beset by low prices and bad weather, but it drew the line against any more such help this year. Proponents pointed to drought in the Southeast, crop-swamping rains in the northern Plains, loss to citrus canker in Florida and weather damage to potato and apple crops in the Northeast. ``We have an agricultural disaster with respect to flood and drought that has destroyed crops throughout the country,'' said North Dakota Democratic Sen. Byron Dorgan. http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000721/pl/congress_farmers_dc_1.html SHELL OIL CHIEF TO CO-CHAIR GLOBAL TASK FORCE ON RENEWABLE ENERGY LONDON, England, August 1, 2000 (ENS) - The chairman of one of the world's largest oil companies will co-chair a task force on renewable energy. The task force was created by the G8 nations when they met in Okinawa late last month. It was given a mandate to report to next year's summit in Genoa, Italy. http://ens.lycos.com/ens/aug2000/2000L-08-01-03.html --- Monday December 13 5:13 PM ET China Disasters Century's Deadliest By CARL HARTMAN Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - China experienced three of the century's four deadliest weather-related disasters, two drought-induced famines that killed more than 29 million people and a Yangtze River flood that claimed 3.7 million lives, U.S. weather experts said Monday. Despite 11,000 deaths in Central America, last year's Hurricane Mitch does not rank near the top of the century's deadliest incidents. Looking back over the century, experts of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found that famine brought on by drought generally was deadlier than storms or floods like the Yangtze disaster of 1931. Most of the famine deaths were in Asia. A 1907 episode killed more than 24 million Chinese. Also in China, the ``New Famine'' of 1936 killed an estimated 5 million Chinese, and a drought in 1941-2 more than 3 million. NOAA said estimates of the dead from starvation in Ukraine and the Volga region of Russia, during the early Soviet years 1921-1922, vary from 250,000 to 5 million. Wind and a storm surge from a 1970 cyclone in Bangladesh may have killed as many as half a million. Climate now is changing faster than ever recorded, said D. James Baker, who heads the federal agency. The agency projected that the United States will record its second warmest year on record this year with an average temperature of 55.7 degrees Fahrenheit, after a record 56.4 degrees in 1998. Global temperatures are expected to finish the year as the fifth warmest on record since 1880, the agency said. ``The new data, the modeling results, and what we know about how the system works is even stronger in pointing toward the fact that we are seeing global warming and it is part of the overall climate change,'' Baker told reporters. NOAA called the United States ``the tornado capital of the world,'' citing an outbreak that swept down the Ohio Valley on March 18, 1925, for a record 31/2 hours and killed 695 people Illinois, Missouri and Indiana. More than 200 tornadoes were observed last January, 14 times the average number, NOAA reported. John Kelly Jr., director of the National Weather Service, emphasized progress in understanding and forecasting weather events. ``The Galveston hurricane of 1900 ... struck with little or no warning,'' Kelly said. ``We knew there was a hurricane somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico, but at that time our information technology didn't enable us to discern exactly where it was. ``The hurricane had at least 8,000 fatalities. ... Compare that with the warnings and the forecasts that were made for (Hurricane) Floyd as it moved up the East coast this past autumn.'' --- NASA Science News for November 10, 1999: Heads Up! - The upcoming Leonids meteor shower (Nov. 17-18) is predicted to be the biggest in decades and perhaps for the next century. While we are safe on the ground, satellite operators are concerned that even small impacts could short-circuit satellites. NASA will coordinate a team that helps track changes in the shower that could be a storm. Full story: http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/ast10nov99_1.htm --- November 3, 1999 UNC-CH scientist encourages all to watch PBS series on microbes FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 1 NOVEMBER 1999 (1 NOVEMBER 1999 GMT) Contact: David Williamson David_Williamson@unc.edu 919-962-8596 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill UNC-CH scientist encourages all to watch PBS series on microbes CHAPEL HILL -- Microbes -- those tiny miracle workers that created and sustain all life on Earth -- will be the subject of a four-part television series focusing exclusively on the microbial world and how it affects life on Earth. The hour-long programs will begin Tuesday (Nov. 9) at 8 p.m. on the Public Broadcasting System. A University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill microbiologist who was intimately involved in designing and producing the series called it "documentary filmmaking at its finest." "Of course, it's too early to say what's going to happen with the Peabody awards, but people at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting who have seen all four parts say the series could win one of them," said Dr. Frederic Pfaender, professor of environmental sciences and engineering. "The music is all original, and the pictures are spectacular. We think all students and everybody interested in the world around them ought to watch these shows." Titled "Intimate Strangers: Unseen Life on Earth," the series will air on Tuesdays throughout November, Pfaender said. Program one, "The Tree of Life," follows the quest of scientists to understand how life on the planet is related. As they map the human genome, they find the ancient DNA of microbes at the roots of the human family tree. The second program, "Keepers of the Biosphere," shows scientists exploring how humans rely on the invisible world of microbes, which drive the chemistry of life. Program three, "Dangerous Friends and Friendly Enemies," describes what happens when human relationships with microbes change and infectious diseases result. Program four introduces scientists who are turning to microbes for solutions to problems of the damaged environment and the growing population. "Microbes generate at least half the oxygen humans breathe and are the basis of the food web that provides everything we eat," Pfaender said. "They live by the trillions in us, on us and around us. They keep us well, and once in a while, they make us sick. They are both supremely important and endlessly fascinating." The UNC-CH scientist is chair of the American Society for Microbiology's technical advisory committee that conceived and oversaw production of the shows as part of its Microbial Literacy Collaborative. Related projects include a college-level distance learning telecourse and companion books. More information is available at www.microbeworld.org and www.pbs.org/als . Support for the documentary, produced by Baker & Simon Associates, came from the society, the National Science Foundation, the Annenberg/CPB Project and the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations. "We are proud of this work," Pfaender said. "Just about everyone who watches will learn something, and everyone should enjoy watching." ### Note: Pfaender can be reached at (919) 966-3842. Contact: David Williamson, (919) 962-8596. --- 01 NOVEMBER 1999 ENN Daily News Populations outrunning water supplies Water tables are falling on every continent and major rivers are being drained dry before they reach the sea, according to a report by the Worldwatch Institute that draws a direct link between water availability, population growth and food security. Full Story: http://www.enn.com/news/enn-stories/1999/11/110199/watershort_6940.asp --- CU study of ice-age sediment cores hint climate change on Earth could be extreme 21 OCTOBER 1999 Contact: Scott Lehman scott.lehman@colorado.edu 303-492-8980 University of Colorado at Boulder CU study of ice-age sediment cores hint climate change on Earth could be extreme An analysis of sediments from the subtropical Atlantic Ocean deposited during Earth's last glacial period indicate sudden temperature fluctuations were as large as those seen in the warming at the end of the last ice age, raising concerns about future climate change. Scott Lehman, a research associate at CU-Boulder's Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, said the study indicated the temperature of the Sargasso Sea between the West Indies and the Azores fluctuated repeatedly by up to 9 degrees Fahrenheit from 60,000 to 30,000 years ago. "What is new here is clear evidence that the warm Atlantic, like the polar Atlantic, was undergoing very large and very rapid temperature changes during the last glacial period." Instrumental climate records and models indicate changes in warm ocean temperatures are likely to produce widespread, global climate impacts, he said. The impacts are due in part to the vast surface area of Earth's warm oceans and the fact that warm oceans create much more water vapor, increasing atmospheric heat trapping. "The temperature of the warm ocean realm regulates the water vapor content of the atmosphere and its greenhouse capacity," he said. Past temperature records and climate models suggest ocean circulation changes, like those in the last glacial period, can be triggered by human activity, showing that "the impact of possible future circulation changes may be more dramatic and widespread than suspected." A paper on the subject by Lehman and Julian Sachs, a former CU-Boulder researcher at INSTAAR now at Columbia University's Barnard College, will appear in the Oct. 22 issue of Science, the nation's premier weekly science magazine. Lehman and Sachs reached their conclusions after studying 50 meters of sediment cores hauled up from several miles deep in the Sargasso Sea near Bermuda by French scientists as part of an international project. The CU researchers analyzed the saturation state of organic molecules from planktonic algae over the past 100,000 years, providing sea-surface temperatures during that period. "The warming at the end of the last ice age about 10,000 years ago was supported by the disappearance of enormous ice sheets, a one-third increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and changes in the seasonal distribution of the sun's energy," Lehman said. "But the abrupt changes we documented during the last ice age seem to be almost entirely ocean driven." Freshening of Earth's oceans is believed to have the ability to trigger abrupt and long-lasting cooling events, including ice ages, by interfering with the conveyor belt of water carrying heat from the tropics to temperate regions. "Numerical modeling studies show that similar changes can be triggered by warming associated with human emissions as well," said Lehman. "Trapping more heat in the atmosphere has the potential to kill major parts of ocean circulation, with the effects reverberating throughout the world," he said. A 1999 study by INSTAAR's Don Barber and colleagues showed the collapse of two gigantic glacial lakes near Hudson Bay about 8,000 years ago poured enough fresh water into the Northern Atlantic to shut down the ocean circulation for several centuries, cooling Europe and Greenland by some 6 degrees F. The last 8,000 years have been remarkably stable in terms of climate, considering the large temperature fluctuations, said Lehman. "By altering the environment through greenhouse gas emissions, we will likely find out how fragile the stability of Earth's climate really is. We may well find out we are dealing with a hair trigger." The next step is to determine if similar changes occurred in the much larger Pacific Ocean, said Lehman. "If so, any human-induced changes to the ocean's plumbing are likely to affect everyone on Earth, not just Greenlanders and Northern Europeans." ### Date: Mon, 11 Oct 1999 06:17:09 -0500 From: Sam Barricklow Subject: Global Warming and the Ozone Hole A recent article in Scientific American magazine (June 1998 p. 14) reported that "methane, another potent greenhouse gas, appears to be accumulating in the atmosphere more slowly than anticipated. If this trend continues, the concentration of methane might soon stabilize, miraculously stemming some 20 percent of the burgeoning greenhouse problem." The article echoed the results of a study by NOAA's Edward J. Dlugokencky and his colleagues delivered at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union last year The article went on to say that "Researchers had known that the growth of atmospheric methane had been ebbing since comprehensive measurements began in the early 1980s. And they were aware of the abrupt decrease in the rising tide of methane and several other gases that occurred in 1992. But, many, including members of the influential Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), regarded that sudden downturn as a short-term "anomaly." After all, the main sources of methane - wetlands, rice paddies and livestock - had not gone away. According to their best guesses, the 1992 decline was caused, perhaps, by the drop in natural gas production (and, presumably, methane leakage from pipes) in the former Soviet Union. Or it came from the eruption of Mount Pinatubo the previous year, which reduced stratospheric ozone and allowed more ultraviolet light to reach the lower atmosphere, where it breaks up methane." "... the IPCC had predicted that atmospheric methane would continue to rise, roughly doubling (in one typical forecast) by 2100. Thus, many of the scenarios for global warming provided in their last assessment may have been overly gloomy." The same issue reports that the land area covered by wetlands in the U.S. is on the decline. More wetlands equals more methane, but less wetlands is a catastrophe too because migratory fowl need them to survive. Another recent issue of Scientific American reports that the Antarctic Ozone Hole is shrinking. That's supposed to be a good thing until you consider that ultraviolet light is needed to break down methane in the lower layers of the atmosphere. Ultraviolet light is greatly attenuated if the ozone layer is at "normal" strength. Then there's the planetary scientists who insist that the major long term climate cycles are controlled by the shape of the Earth's orbit, the tilt of the Earth's axis and solar output, all of which change with time. They say we are at the peak of an interglacial warm cycle and soon the slide down the temperature curve toward another period of glaciation will begin. The human induced greenhouse effect may only serve to slightly modulate and lengthen the peak. Since the beginning of all the political hub bub about the greenhouse effect, I've wondered how so much could be concluded in such a short period of data collection, which only started in the early 1980s. What is even more interesting is that neither the politicians nor the television media has reported these changes with the same zeal that they reported global warming. Actually, it doesn't seem that the VP has even made mention of these changes. I wonder why. --- Subject: FW:NCEP Computers ADMIN NOTICE NOUS41 KWBC NOUS41 KWBC 082039M PNSWSH PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE HEADQUARTERS WASHINGTON DC 430 PM EDT FRI OCT 8 1999 ATTENTION: ALL NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE (NWS) OFFICES/ FAMILY OF SERVICES SUBSCRIBERS / NOAAPORT USERS / NOAA WEATHER WIRE SERVICE SUBSCRIBERS / OTHER NWS PRODUCT USERS SUBJECT: NWS MAINTAINS STRONG SUPPORT FOR HURRICANE FORECASTING DESPITE DAMAGED SUPERCOMPUTER FUNCTIONS OF THE NATION'S WEATHER SUPERCOMPUTER, VICTIM OF A DAMAGING ELECTRICAL FIRE ON SEPTEMBER 27TH, HAVE BEEN REDISTRIBUTED TO ENSURE SUPPORT FOR HURRICANE FORECASTING OPERATIONS THROUGH THE BALANCE OF THE ATLANTIC SEASON ( JUNE 1ST TO NOVEMBER 30TH) REPORT OFFICIALS OF THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE'S NATIONAL CENTERS FOR ENVIRONMENTAL PREDICTION (NCEP). THE FIRE BEGAN IN A POWER SUPPLY UNIT OF THE NWS CRAY C-90 SUPERCOMPUTER THAT RUNS THE WEATHER MODELS FOR A NUMBER OF NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE PRODUCTS, INCLUDING HURRICANE ADVISORIES. THE FIRE TEMPORARILY DISRUPTED OPERATIONS FOR SOME 3.5 HOURS WHILE BACK-UP SYSTEMS WERE PUT ON LINE. THESE BACK-UP SYSTEMS WILL OPERATE FOR ANOTHER FOUR TO SIX WEEKS AS THE C-90 COMPUTER IS EVALUATED FOR DAMAGE AND THE AGENCY INSTALLS THE NEW IBM SUPERCOMPUTER ALREADY SET TO REPLACE THE CRAY AT YEAR'S END. IN THE MEANTIME, THE NWS IS USING OTHER SMALLER NWS COMPUTERS AND ENGAGED COMPUTERS AND MODELS RUN BY THE U.S. NAVY, U.S. AIR FORCE, THE NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATIONS FORECAST SYSTEMS LABORATORY AND THE UNITED KINGDOM METEOROLOGICAL OFFICE, THE EUROPEAN CENTRE FOR MEDIUM-RANGE WEATHER FORECASTS AND THE CANADIAN METEOROLOGICAL CENTER. NWS OFFICIALS SAY THAT IN THE INTERIM, ALL CRITICAL OPERATIONS AT NCEP CONTINUE TO BE SUPPORTED, AND THAT THE AVIATION MODEL, ONE OF THE SYSTEM'S PRIMARY GUIDANCE TOOLS, WILL BE RUN LESS FREQUENTLY FROM FOUR TIMES DAILY TO TWICE DAILY. DURING TROPICAL STORM ACTIVITY, THE NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER WILL CONTINUE TO ISSUE ITS NORMAL DAILY HURRICANE ADVISORIES ON SCHEDULE AT 5:00 AND 11:00 A.M. AND P.M. THE ADVISORIES ISSUED AT EACH OF THE 5:00 O'CLOCK HOURS WILL CARRY WARNING INFORMATION BASED PRINCIPALLY ON NAVY, AIR FORCE AND UNITED KINGDOM MODEL DATA. HOWEVER, AN UPDATED, SPECIAL ADVISORY USING THE LATEST DATA FROM THE NWS MODEL CAN BE ISSUED AT THE 6:30 HOURS IF WARRANTED, SAID JERRY JARRELL, NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER DIRECTOR. PERSONS WISHING MORE INFORMATION SHOULD CONTACT: NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER FRANK LEPORE PA 305-229-4404 END ------------------------------ Subject: Model Data Impacts on NESDIS Production From: sarnett@ssdnotes.wwb.noaa.gov Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1999 10:13:59 -0400 The NWS CRAY-3 computer system was damaged by a fire yesterday - Monday, September 27th. The impacts on NESDIS production at this point are unclear. This will not impact satellite image data, but could impact Sounder Data, Derived Imagery, ASOS, Cloud Drift Winds, the AutoEstimator for IFFA, and other areas dependent on model data input. Following a total outage of the CRAYs due to the fire, some NESDIS products overnight were affected by a lack of current model data. At present, the other CRAYs appear to be handling the load o.k., and satellite based products are being produced normally. However, the longevity and future impact of the outage is unknown at this time. NWS is conducting a meeting tomorrow to discuss the issues. Updates will be provided as information becomes available. MORE INFO FOLLOWS... FACT SHEET ON NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICES CRAY C90 SUPERCOMPUTER FIRE AT SUITLAND CAMPUS - ON MONDAY 9/27/99 AT 4:00 P.M. A FIRE OCCURRED INSIDE THE CRAY C90 SUPERCOMPUTER IN FEDERAL OFFICE BUILDING 4 IN SUITLAND MD. THE CRAY C90 IS THE CENTRAL NOAA NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE /NWS/ COMPUTER THAT GENERATES NUMERICAL WEATHER FORECAST MODELS FOR THE NATIONAL CENTERS FOR ENVIRONMENTAL PREDICTION /NCEP/ IN CAMP SPRINGS MD. -THE PRINCE GEORGES COUNTY FIRE DEPARTMENT RESPONDED AND EXTINGUISHED THE FIRE BY USING DRY CHEMICALS. TWO OF THE POWER SUPPLY UNITS INSIDE OF THE CRAY C90 WERE DAMAGED. THE DRY CHEMICALS USED BY THE FIRE DEPARTMENT CONTAMINATED OTHER COMPONENTS IN THE COMPUTER AS WELL. -AFTER AN ASSESSMENT OF THE CRAY C90 COMPUTER...SILICON GRAPHICS INCORPORATED...THE COMPUTER CONTRACTOR...HAS DETERMINED THAT THE COMPUTER HAS BEEN SIGNIFICANTLY DAMAGED. SILICON GRAPHICS DOES NOT BELIEVE THE COMPUTER CAN BE REPAIRED. THE CRAY C90 IS INOPERATIVE. -NCEP CONTINUES TO INVESTIGATE OPTIONS FOR RESTORING CRAY C90 SERVICE. IN COLLABORATION WITH NOAAS HIGH PERFORMANCE COMPUTING CENTER /HPCC/ NCEP IS GETTTING A SECOND OPINION THROUGH AN EXPERT AT NIST ON THE EXTENT OF DAMAGE CAUSED BY THE FIRE. -ALL CRITICAL OPERATIONS AT NCEP CONTINUE TO BE SUPPORTED. THE NWS FORECASTERS CONTINUE TO PERFORM THEIR DUTIES UTILIZING NUMERICAL MODELS RUN ON OTHER NWS COMPUTERS AND ACCESSED FROM OTHER NATIONAL CENTERS. NCEP HAS IMPLEMENTED PRE ARRANGED BACKUP SUPPORT PROCEDURES USING AIR FORCE NAVY AND FSL FORECAST PRODUCTS. -SOME MODELS WHICH USUALLY RUN FOUR TIMES DAILY ARE NOW RUNNING TWICE DAILY AND ONE MODEL THAT IS USUALLY RUN HOURLY IS BEING RUN EVERY THREE HOURS/ WITH HOURLY RUNS TO BE RESUMED BY FRIDAY 10/1/99. WE ARE ABLE TO MAKE DUE WITH THESE RUNS IN ADDITION TO USING THE OTHER MODEL INFORMATION AVAILABLE FROM OTHER NATIONAL CENTERS. -THE NWS HAS TAKEN ALL STEPS NECESSARY TO MINIMIZE POTENTIAL IMPACTS TO NWS FORECASTERS AND THOSE OUTSIDE OF THE NWS WHO RELY ON OUR PRODUCTS. .................................................................... NCEP MODEL SUITE BACKUP SUMMARY - 9/30/99 MODEL NORMAL OPERATIONS BACKUP REMARKS RUC HOURLY 3 HOURLY FSL HOURLY 10/1/99 ETA32 KM 4 PER DAY 80 KM 2 PER NO ETA DAY/ 00Z & DATA 12Z ASSIMILIATION 36 KM MM5 AIR FORCE 2 PER DAY CONUS - 06Z & 18Z EVALUATING ALASKA NGM/MOS 80 KM 2 PER DAY NO CHANGE NO REGIONAL DATA ASSIMILATION SYSTEM AVN 4 PER DAY 2 PER DAY GLOBAL 4 PER DAY 2 PER DAY ANALYSIS /FNL/ MRF GLOBAL 16 DAY FORECAST /7 DAY FORECAST/ 1 PER DAY 1 PER DAY MRF ENSEMBLE 17-MEMBER/ 1 PER DAY TOTAL NAVY ECMWF CANADIAN RESTRICTED TO ECMWF ENSEMBLE NCEP USE ONLY PACKAGES HURRICANE 5 STORMS PER 12-HOUR 1 STORM PER NWS PRODUCT 12-HOUR DOUBLE-NESTED 2 STORMS PER NAVY PRODUCT 12-HOUR TRIPLE-NESTED WAVE MODEL 2 PER DAY NO CHANGE VAFTAD RUN ON DEMAND NO CHANGE CLIMATE MODEL 18-MEMBER ENSEMBLE ENSO NO CLIMATE TWICE PER MONTH EXPERIMENTAL DATA MODEL ONCE ASSIMILATION PER MONTH SYSTEM REGIONAL 48-HOURS/2 PER DAY NO CHANGE STOUDT/SDM/NCO/NCEP ------------------------------ --- Date: 23 Sept. 1999 Meteorologists fear loss of radio frequencies: http://www.enn.com/news/enn-stories/1999/09/092299/weatherfreq_5674.asp Scientists decry proposed budget cuts: A coalition of scientists, university professors and business leaders convened on Capitol Hill today to urge members of Congress to continue support for scientific research at American universities. Full story: http://www.enn.com/news/enn-stories/1999/09/092299/science_5824.asp --- Date: 16 Aug 1999 ALARM SOUNDED OVER ENERGY RESEARCH CUTS Industrialized nations, including the United States, have dramatically reduced their research into energy technology, researchers say, and the reduction is jeopardizing the world's ability to cope with environmental problems and the growing demand for energy. http://www.enn.com/news/enn-stories/1999/08/080299/energydecline_4721.asp SOLAR GIANT CREATED FROM INTERNATIONAL MERGER SAN DIEGO, California, August 4, 1999 (ENS) - The world's largest vertically integrated producer and supplier of solar energy products has been created by a merger between a Japanese manufacturer and a company in Colorado. Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 1999 For full text and graphics visit: http://ens.lycos.com/ens/aug99/1999L-08-04-02.html "WHERE SOME SEE RUSTING FACTORIES, GOVERNMENT SEES A SOURCE OF SOLAR ENERGY. " New York Times, 4 Aug 99, A8. In a move to make use of contaminated (not toxic) former waste sites as well as improve air quality and create jobs, the Energy Department announced its "win-win" idea to cover the sites with solar panels "to make much-needed electricity without disturbingburied contaminants". Electricity will be used to light parks, municipal buildings and transit stations. The Energy Department, confident that environmental regulators will allow use of the former sites if contaminants are not disturbed, is discussing project plans for Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, CA., Stamford, CT., and other cities. "ELECTRIC BUS CONTRACTS SHUTTLE IN NEW ERA. " Los Angeles Times, 4 Aug 99, C1, C10. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (DWP) is giving out contracts for electric buses and has even bigger plans to give an order for full-sized transit buses powered by electricity and natural gas in time for the Democratic National Convention next year. The production contracts provide opportunities to build vehicles that will be cost- competitive with today's diesel buses. Ebus, Inc. plans to have 18 electric shuttle buses for the DWP ready for demonstration by this November. WIND POWER TAX CREDIT GIVES INDUSTRY NEEDED BOOST The June 30 expiration of the federal wind energy production tax credit (PTC) could spell disaster for the future of this renewable resource, according to some wind energy industry representatives. The PTC provision, first enacted in 1992, provided a 1.5 cents per kilowatt-hour (kwh) credit for electricity generated by wind power plants. Although the PTC funds only generated energy, the credit is linked to financing and developing new wind energy sources. The expiration of the tax credit is drying up investments and halting future project planning. A five year extension to the PTC is included in the Senate's massive tax cut bill up for a vote today, which President Bill Clinton has threatened to veto for unrelated reasons. In Palm Springs, California, Leif Andersen of the wind turbine manufacturer NEG Micon said the American wind energy industry is watching the progress of the PTC with interest. "If it is not passed, some American wind companies may have a tough time surviving," he told ENS. PLANT RESEARCH GETS MORE MONEY Hoping to capitalize on the phase-out of a fuel additive, a Senate committee voted today to authorize $300 million in research on new ways to make ethanol and other chemicals from crops, grass and trees. [ENN, 30 July 1999] CLEANER AVIATION FUEL Lead-free gasoline became mandatory for cars more than 25 years ago, but aviation fuel was not bound by these rules. Now, a lead free version is about to hit the market in the Midwest. The new fuel is about 85 percent ethanol and is roughly half the price of regular aviation fuel. Great Lakes Radio Consortium (0:57) http://www.enn.com/enn-multimedia-archive/1999/07/073099/072999glrc_4680.asp TURNING CHICKEN "LITTER" INTO POWER, WITH A PEEP. The Washington Post, July 29, 1999, pA27. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-07/29/153l-072999-idx.html A proposal to offer a subsidy to companies that burn chicken waste to produce electricity is included in the Senate tax cut bill. The provision, which was introduced by William Roth Jr. (R- DE), is known as the Poultry Energy Power Act, or PEEP. The problem of what to do with chicken waste, called litter, has been growing over the past decade as Americans increase their consumption of poultry. Farmers have traditionally used the waste to fertilize their fields. Recently, however, water pollution from fertilizer-tainted runoff has caused environmental problems that are forcing people to look for alternative ways to deal with the waste. PEEP was driven by lobbyists who represent a handful of companies that specialize in converting chicken waste into energy. Lobbyists from McGuire, Woods, Battle & Boothe have been working on the issue for Fibrowatt Ltd, a British company that would like to set up business in the US, and Catamount Energy Corp, a Vermont utility that specializes in power from alternative energy sources. Other companies and interested parties oppose PEEP for various reasons. Some feel that there are better uses for chicken waste than burning it as fuel. "Our group, generally speaking, does not believe that burning the manure is the best solution," said Brad Powers, co-chairman of the Animal Waste Technology Work Group in Maryland. "We believe the organic matter is sufficiently valuable that it doesn't make sense to destroy it." Powers' group favors the approach of companies like AgriRecycle Inc., which creates pollution-free fertilizer pellets out of processed chicken litter. PEEP also faces opposition in congress from Rep. Bill Archer (R-TX), who represents a state with large fossil fuel interests. Archer's spokesman, Trent Duffy, insists that the Representative doesn't oppose the act because of oil and gas interests, however. "He doesn't have a problem with entrepreneurial new approaches to creating fuel or creating electricity," Duffy says. "He just doesn't think the tax credit should be expanded." "RESURRECTING ENERGY EFFICIENCY [Op-Ed]." New York Times, 28 July 99, A23. Ralph Cavanagh, co-director of the energy program for the Natural Resources Defense Council, urges Congress to return to the earlier policies of providing financial incentives for utility companies and others to make energy-efficient purchases. http://www.nytimes.com NEW ELECTRICAL TRANSFORMERS WILL IMPROVE POWER QUALITY WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. -- An engineering consortium led by Purdue University and the University of Missouri has taken a major step toward replacing the century-old technology behind the numerous, oil-filled power transformers that hang like icons from utility poles in residential neighborhoods. The consortium developed a new class of transformers that will smooth out the uneven voltages that plague today's grid and prematurely age electrical hardware ranging from light bulbs to motors to power supplies in electronic equipment. They are designed with so-called "solid state" technology, meaning they rely primarily on semiconductor components such as transistors and integrated circuits instead of the heavy copper coils and iron cores of conventional transformers. Solid-state transformers would reduce the amount of current actually required to supply devices such as electric machinery, cutting down on losses associated with the transmission of electricity throughout the power grid. In addition, solid-state transformers represent an environmental improvement because they do not contain mineral oil, an insulation that can leak and pollute the environment. http://news.uns.purdue.edu/UNS/html4ever/990716.Sudhoff.transformer.html CHERNOBYL RADIOACTIVITY PERSISTS IN FISH by Bror Jonsson, Torbjorn Foreseth, and Ola Ugedal http://www.nature.com/server-java/Propub/nature/400417A0.abs_frameset NUCLEAR POWER NEARS ITS PEAK As the new century approaches, energy planners around the world are discovering that the "energy source of the future" nuclear power is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. Most countries have brought the construction of nuclear plants to a halt, and some are debating how fast to phase out the plants they now have. http://www.enn.com/features/1999/08/080299/worldwatch_4750.asp WESTERN HEMISPHERE ENERGY MINISTERS AGREE TO INTEGRATE WASHINGTON, DC, August 2, 1999 (ENS) - Energy ministers or their representatives from 30 countries in the Western Hemisphere met last week in New Orleans, Louisiana and signed agreements on cooperation with the business community, clean energy and a 10 country cross-border electricity transmission project. http://ens.lycos.com/ens/aug99/1999L-08-02-02.html --- Date: 7 Aug 1999 Subject: Bill Gray's Early August Seasonal Hurricane Forecast Update (fwd) RELATIVELY SLOW START TO HURRICANE SEASON DOES NOT CHANGE COLORADO STATE'S FORECAST NUMBERS; ACTIVE 1999 SEASON STILL PREDICTED [ NOTE: Forecast totals are in the attached chart. The complete ] [ hurricane forecast and related research and related research ] [ and press releases are available on the World Wide Web at: ] [ http://tropical.atmos.colostate.edu/forecasts/index.html ] [ For more information contact: ] [ David Weymiller phone: (970) 491-6432 ] [ e-mail: Dweymiller@vines.colostate.edu ] FORT COLLINS--In the final update for the 1999 hurricane season, Colorado State University hurricane forecaster William Gray and his team held to the same numbers they predicted earlier in the year, calling for an active year with 14 named storms, nine hurricanes and four intense hurricanes. The slow beginning of the season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30, has not been a factor to lower the numbers, said Gray, professor of atmospheric science. Those figures have been consistent through the initial December 1998 forecast and updates in April and June. Gray still anticipates an active year. "I know there are many people out there looking at conditions during the last month who'll say, 'Look, in July there's been nothing there.' But we've had many years when we've had almost nothing going on in the Atlantic Basin until mid- or late-August and still have had active seasons. "People should not be lulled into thinking that because we've had a rather slow start to the season that we're going to get a slow season." Only one named storm, Arlene, has formed thus far, and that was in June. On average, Gray said, one storm before the beginning of the intense part of the season (generally considered to extend from mid-August to late October) doesn't necessarily indicate a lower than average season. Long-term, 1950-1990 averages yield 9.3 tropical storms, 5.8 hurricanes and 2.2 intense hurricanes each year. The 1998 year brought 14 tropical storms, 10 hurricanes and three intense hurricanes. "We think this year should be much like last year and 1996, but not as active as the 1995 year was. This is probably not (going to be) one of those eight or 10 blockbuster storm years of the century, but it still should be a very active year," Gray said. The team believes there is a roughly 54 percent chance that one or more intense storms (with wind speeds of 111 mph or above) will make landfall along the U.S. East Coast, including peninsular Florida. The Gulf Coast has an approximately 40 percent chance that one or more intense storms will make landfall. For the Caribbean and Bahamas land areas, the rough probability of one or more major storm landfalls is 72 percent, and for Mexico the probability is 28 percent. What Gray refers to as "climate signals," measures of the global oceanic and atmospheric circulation system, have remained both consistent throughout the year and in all but one case favorable to hurricane formation. Those factors promoting hurricane formation include: *La Ninã, a mass of cold water in the eastern equatorial Pacific. Gray notes that while La Ninã is an important indicator that more storms will form, it is far from the only one the team considers in its calculations. *Stratospheric equatorial winds, which are currently blowing from the west. From that direction the winds tend to generate 50 to 100 percent more storms than when the winds are easterly. *Warmer-than-normal sea surface temperatures in almost all of the North Atlantic Ocean. *West African rainfall, which began increasing in July and now is anticipated to be above average for this summer. *Equatorial winds at 40,000 feet above the earth, blowing from the east off the African continent. These winds, occurring between five and 20 degrees north latitude, combine with easterly trade winds to create less vertical wind shear (less difference between wind speeds at different heights in the atmosphere) and so causing less disruption to hurricane formation. In addition, Gray said, the monsoon is running well in southern Asia, a factor weakly correlated with Atlantic Basin (North Atlantic, Caribbean Ocean and Gulf of Mexico) hurricanes. Another phenomenon, relatively cold water off the west coast of North America, is correlated with more landfalling intense hurricanes off the nation's Eastern Seaboard. The one climate signal that has not been favorable to hurricane formation may, in fact, be rapidly changing. Above-average, sea-level barometric pressure in the western Atlantic and Caribbean basin began dropping quickly during the last 10 days. "That's the only negative factor we've been following, and we think the pressure will continue to fall as it has in recent days," Gray said. The forecast, now in its 16th year, is prepared by Gray and co-authors Chris Landsea, Paul Mielke, Kenneth Berry and other project colleagues. Gray believes that signals from the Atlantic, coupled with recent strong hurricane activity, indicate a new era of storm formation. The years 1995-98 were the most-active four consecutive years of hurricane activity on record, yielding 53 named storms, 33 hurricanes and 15 major hurricanes. Increasing North Atlantic sea surface temperatures and salinity suggest that changes observed since 1995 indicate a continuance of a strong Atlantic Ocean conveyor belt circulation, bringing with it the chance for more intense hurricanes along the Atlantic coast and in the Caribbean. This enhanced period could continue for two or more decades, Gray believes. Gray has said that while the Atlantic conveyor belt affects the Eastern Seaboard, this year also could see more activity at low latitudes from easterly waves progressing out of Africa. "The probability for United States or Caribbean intense-storm landfall is distinctly higher this year than in the average year, and particularly in comparison to the relatively quiet period of 1970-1994," Gray said. While he expects low-latitude storms that could affect the Caribbean, they can continue moving west-northwest and affect the Gulf Coast. Gray said that the cold water along the Pacific, from southern Canada to Baja California, is not associated with La Ninã, which is much farther south, but is connected historically with higher-than-average numbers of landfalling storms along the East Coast. The probability of the formation of an intense storm "ramps up" rather quickly from mid-August and drops with equal speed after mid-September. "Our forecast for this coming season is based on the future being like the past," Gray said. "Similar atmospheric and ocean patterns as this year occurred in 1950, 1955, 1961, 1964 and 1995. All these were very active seasons. "Things look favorable for an active season. If we don't get an active year in 1999, it means the atmosphere for some strange reason has stopped behaving as it has in the past. We don't expect that to happen." GRAY RESEARCH TEAM HURRICANE FORECAST FOR 1999 SEASON Dec 1998 Apr 7 Jun 4 Aug 6 Named Storms (9.3)* 14 14 14 14 Named Storm Days (46.9) 65 65 75 75 Hurricanes (5.8) 9 9 9 9 Hurricane Days (23.7) 40 40 40 40 Intense Hurricanes (2.2) 4 4 4 4 Intense Hurricane Days (4.7) 10 10 10 10 Hurricane Destruction Potential (70.6) 130 130 130 130 Maximum Potential Destruction (61.7) 130 130 130 130 Net Tropical Cyclone Activity (100%) 160 160 160 160 * Number in ( ) represents average year totals based on 1950-1990 data. ** Hurricane Destruction Potential measures a hurricane's potential for wind- and ocean-surge damage. Tropical Storm, Hurricane and Intense Hurricane Days are four, six-hour periods where storms attain wind speeds appropriate to their category on the Saffir-Simpson scale. --- 29 July 1999 EARTH'S STOCKS DOWN BY ONE-THIRD While economic assessments show a doubling of global wealth between 1970 and 1995, a new report estimates that in the same period, the Earth has lost one-third of its natural capital -- as measured by the health of its forest, freshwater and marine ecosystems. http://www.enn.com/features/1999/07/072299/stocks_4488.asp CONGRESS SHOULD DIRECT DEPT. OF COMMERCE TO DEVELOP ENVIRONMENTAL ACCOUNTING Congress should authorize the Department of Commerce to resume work on a national accounting method that links economic activity, natural resources, and the environment to provide a more accurate picture of U.S. economic growth, says a new National Research Council report. http://national-academies.org ENVIRONMENTAL ACCOUNTING NEEDED FOR MORE ACCURATE PICTURE OF U.S. ECONOMY Fred Elbel writes: "A response from an Economics PhD friend of mine: `Fred, thanks for forwarding this press release. Its good to see the NAS weighing in on this, although I don't know what took them so long. As things stand now, it is an almost hopeless effort because congress is dead set against green accounting and, if memory serves, has passed a law forbidding agencies to spend money on green accounting. Apparently industry fears it will uncover more of their dirty activities and give more incentive for stronger environmental laws.'" [Source: Fred Elbel felbel@sni.net 7/22/1999] HARNESSING SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY FOR AMERICA'S ECONOMIC FUTURE: NATIONAL AND REGIONAL PRIORITIES http://www.nap.edu/readingroom/enter2.cgi?0309065380.html WAVERING SUPPORT FOR BASIC RESEARCH AND DEFICIENCIES IN PRE-COLLEGE EDUCATION may jeopardize the nation's ability to achieve sustained economic growth and improve living standards during the next decade, says a new National Research Council report. http://national-academies.org/topnews/#0714 http://www.nap.edu/readingroom/enter2.cgi?0309071518.html --- 26 July 1999 HEAT ADVISORIES ISSUED IN 23 STATES; AIR POLLUTION ADDS TO HEALTH RISKS (CBS)If misery loves company, folks in Dallas, where it hit 105 degrees Saturday, have plenty. A Texas-style heat wave has left Americans gasping for relief under heat advisories in 23 states. "We have a real heat pump that is centered right in the heartland of the nation, and going all around this big heat pump is what we call a ring of fire," explains CBS News Meteorologist Craig Allen. In upstate New York, the blistering sun and high humidity are to blame for 1,000 cases of heat-related illness among the 200,000 people attending Woodstock's 30th anniversary concert. And heat's not the only problem. "Every little weather system that tries to push down out of Canada seems to be touching off intense thunderstorms this year," Allen says. In Michigan this week, winds of nearly 70 mph toppled trees, flipped boats and ripped the siding off Tiger Stadium. Fierce summer storms have also damaged crops in Ohio and put parts of Detroit underwater. Add air pollution to the mix and summer in the city can be risky, reports CBS News Correspondent Lee Cowan . In Washington D.C., the air got so thick it choked off buildings and swallowed planes. The picture was the same along the East Coast, with hazy skies making the air unsightly - and unsafe to breathe. Health warnings were issued across the country. And in New York, Vice President Gore announced there would be more to come. "Parents will soon hear on TV or radio specific warning when the air is dangerous for those with asthma," he says. "And incidentally, it is today in New York City!" A new Air Quality Index unveiled Saturday will provide specific new warnings for sensitive groups like those with asthma and other respiratory problems. It will require the same format nationwide, suggesting precautions for those who suffer most. "This is gonna hone in on the people who really face a deadly threat," Gore says. "If they need that information, they ought to have it, and now the will have it." The new warnings are especially aimed at young people. Respiratory problems sent some 100,000 children to emergency rooms last year, a number that has more than doubled over the last 15 years. RIO GRANDE VALLEY COTTON CROP SOURS (23 July 1999) HARLINGEN, Texas (AP) -- Aaron Shields, a third generation Rio Grande Valley cotton farmer, planted his 800 acres of cotton this year hoping to get a decent price with an early crop. Now it is practically August, prices are in the basement and an unusually persistent dose of rain is souring the cotton, making fields too soggy for harvesting equipment. Rain also has made it difficult to apply expensive insecticides and defoliants to the plants. Defoliants knock leaves off the plants to make it easier for harvesters to pass through fields and to keep the cotton lint free of leaf debris. Although defoliants are absorbed relatively quickly, insecticides wash off cotton easily, which has given boll weevils free rein in some fields. GREAT LAKES DIP TO 32-YEAR LOW (23 July 1999) Lake Ontario recently stood at 7 inches below average. Seven inches may not seem like much water, but that's on a lake that stretches roughly 200 miles long and 50 miles across. Lake Erie was down 3 inches, Superior was 6 inches off and Michigan and Huron came up 8 inches short. The lakes will probably recede an additional 1 and 1/2 feet through November before inching back up again. http://dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/ap/ap_headlines/story.html?s=v/ap/19990718/ CROPS DYING IN MID-ATLANTIC DROUGHT (23 July 1999) BALTIMORE (AP) - Malcolm Goode Jr. is so discouraged he can't bear to look at his field of dead corn, shriveled from drought. "I don't think it is going to turn around this year," said Goode, 46, who owns 500 acres in Maddox, Md. "The corn crop is just about shot." A growing number of farmers who can only stand by and watch their crops die because of a drought that began last summer. The worst conditions are in the mid-Atlantic and the interior Pacific Northwest. Drought conditions also exist in the Northeast and California. New Jersey farmer Bob Puskas said the last good rain was 3 inches in May. "It is very devastating," said Puskas, who farms 1,500 acres in Somerset. "Our corn is pretty much a lost cause. Milk production is off by one-third. It is from the heat stress and there's no pasture left." Reservoirs throughout the region are below normal and dropping. In eastern Pennsylvania, some wells are drying up. Areas of Maryland and Virginia are running a 15-inch rain deficit over the past year, meaning rainfall is about 32 percent below normal. In Pennsylvania and New Jersey, some areas have a 13-inch deficit. Eleven counties in Virginia have asked to be declared disaster areas. About 500,000 fish were found dead Thursday in a tributary of the Pocomoke River - apparent victims of excessive heat, which can deplete water of oxygen. Livestock, hay and pastures have been hit particularly hard. "People are culling their herds, they're selling more of their livestock, because they see they're not going to have enough water or feed to carry their herd into the winter," said Roy Seward of the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. http://dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/ap/ap_us/story.html?s=v/ap/19990723/us/mid_ "MAJOR FISH KILL DISCOVERED. LACK OF OXYGEN BLAMED; UP TO 500,000 DIE ON EASTERN SHORE." Washington Post, 23 July 99, B1, B4. Maryland officials found an estimated 500,000 dead menhaden on Bullbegger Creek, which feeds the Pocomoke River, and blamed the fish kill on too little oxygen in the water. No lesions associated with the toxic microbe Pfiesteria piscicida were found on the fish but water samples were sent to a laboratory in North Carolina for testing. "HOPE DRIES UP WITH CROPS." Washington Post, 22 July 99, B1, B5. Mid-Atlantic region agricultural officials are preparing to seek a federal disaster declaration for the third year in a row as the 1999 agricultural year is already disastrously dry, affecting tens of thousands of farmers across the mid-Atlantic region. DROUGHT REACHES CRISIS POINT (21 July 1999) (States News Service) New Jersey -- The dry weather across the region has reached crisis point. A drought emergency has been declared. STORM LEVELS 25 MILLION TREES (20 July 1999) (CBS) For more than 20 years, Jim Brandenburg has photographed Minnesota wilderness. His work showcases nature at its best, reports CBS News Correspondent Cynthia Bowers. Now he's seeing it at its worst. "I still can't believe it, I wake up at night and think its still a dream, right?" Brandenberg said. Unfortunately not. A devastating storm that swept through northern Minnesota on Independence Day left a massive trail of destruction 30 miles long and 12 miles wide. Its fierce winds knocked down an estimated 25 million trees in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, one of the most prized national forests in the country. "It looks like phenomenally huge footsteps through the woods flattened it," said Mark Ringlever of the U.S. Forest Service Experts liken what happened here to a hurricane in a forest. Ferocious winds gusting up to 100 mph, snapping trees, some that stood for centuries, in a matter of minutes. The National Weather Service calls this phenomenon straight-line wind. Typically, a powerful burst of air slams into an enormous storm front, which is then pushed forward, forcing the air downward. In this case, straight into the forest. "If this went through a large city, I shudder to think about the damage we would have gotten out of that," said Michael Stewart of the National Weather Service. Most of the Boundary Waters remain open, and the forest service is working frantically to clear the damage, but nature has changed the landscape in many settings captured by Brandenburg. "This is a scene I probably won't shoot anymore. I'll just paddle by and remember the good old days," Brandenburg said of a devastated forest area. It will take at least 90 years for the large trees that were lost to come back. Until then Brandenburg and others will have to rely on photographs and memories. IOWA FLASH FLOODS WREAK HAVOC (20 July 1999) (Associated Press) Heavy rainfall in north-central Iowa caused flash floods that carried away trailers and stranded people on their roofs. One man was missing after his car was washed off a flooded road. Jul 20, 1999 IMPACT LOUDOUN TO LIMIT WATER USE. AGENCIES URGING REGION TO CONSERVE." Washington Post, 20 July 99, B1, B7. Reduced water levels at the Goose Creek Water Treatment Plant due to the recent drought have prompted the Loudoun County (Va.) Board of Supervisors to impose mandatory restrictions on water use. Other agencies in the area say they have enough capacity to provide water to residents during the drought but urge residents to conserve water where possible. Sidebar: "Some Advice on Conserving Water." DROUGH EMERGENCY DELCARED IN PENNSYLVANIA (20 July 1999) Pennysylvania (PR Newswire)-- Gov. Tom Ridge today signed a proclamation declaring a drought emergency in 55 Pennsylvania counties and calling on Pennsylvanians to conserve water as drought conditions statewide continue to deteriorate. "WATER SCARCE, BARCELONA PLANS BIG PIPE TO TAP RHONE." New York Times, 19 July 99, A4. Planners in arid Barcelona, Spain have proposed the building of a 200-mile aqueduct to carry 1 percent of the currently- untapped Rhone River's normal volume of water from Montpellier, through the Pyrenees, to Spain. Global warming is suspected of bringing about the Mediterranean's increasingly dry climate. Experts foreshadow the trend will lead to a severe drinking water shortage in Barcelona, Spain's second largest and growing city. If the aqueduct is approved, the price of water in Barcelona is expected to triple. Legal and political intricacies, including negotiating water rights for the new aqueduct with France's farmers, are among the hurdles the plan must overcome. BANGLADESH FLOODS INUNDATE MORE AREAS, KILL THREE (Reuters) Three people have died and two are missing in floods that have swept large areas southeast of the Bangladesh capital Dhaka since a river broke through an embankment about a week ago, officials said Sunday. - 18 July 1999 HEAT, REFORMS HURTING RUSSIAN FARMS (16 July 1999) MOSCOW (AP) - Vasily Kuprianov can't decide what roils him most. A drought and heat wave that are scorching his wheat crop. A government that has dissolved Soviet-era farm subsidies but has lagged on real reform. "What's worse? That's a dismal question," said the director of grain and livestock at the Moskovsky farm south of Moscow. Kuprianov keeps the lights off in his office so they don't add more heat to the sweltering 90-degree afternoon. Flies hover around his phone. Sweat stains the business card he's holding. The weather is the most immediate problem. This June was the hottest month on record for his area, and the driest since 1951. July and August promise more of the same. LOCUSTS THREATEN RUSSIAN HARVEST (9 JULY 1999) (Associated Press) Spring frost and summer drought have already severely damaged Russia's 1999 harvest. Now come the locusts. FLOODS COVER ARIZONA ROADS (16 July 1999) (Associated Press) Almost 7 inches of rain doused parts of Arizona, causing major flooding and forcing authorities to rescue hikers, horses and squealing pigs from the rising waters. EIGHT KILLED IN IRAN FLOODS (16 July 1999) (Associated Press) Flash floods in northwestern Iran killed 8 people and left 5 others missing, Iran's official television reported Friday. CALIFORNIANS CLEAN UP AFTER FLOODS (13 July 1999) (Associated Press) Residents of this small hamlet in the San Bernardino Mountains began digging out a day after flood waters and landslides swept through homes, killing one woman and injuring five others. 66,000 RESCUED AFTER CHINA FLOODING (13 July 1999) (Associated Press) About 66,000 tourists who had been stranded by floods along China's Yangtze River had to be evacuated to safer areas, state media reported Tuesday. UN WARNS ON SOMALIA STARVATION RISK (12 July 1999) ROME (AP) - More than 400,000 people in the African nation of Somalia risk starvation due to civil war, disease and drought, a U.N. agency said Monday. Food shortages are chronic. "The food outlook is extremely grim," the Food and Agricultural Organization said. The FAO said Somalia will need food assistance from the international community "well into the year 2000." At least 1 million people face food shortages, with more than 400,000 at risk of starving, it said. STORMS WASH AWAY CARS IN CALIFORNIA (12 July 1999) (Associated Press) Flash floods swept cars and cabins into a creek Sunday afternoon as storms rolled through Southern California. LANDSLIDES KILL 15 IN ROMANIA (12 July 1999) (Associated Press) Landslides produced by heavy floods killed at least 15 people today in western Romania, and flooding damaged hundreds of houses, local media reported. FLASH FLOODS SWAMP CALIFORNIA (12 July 1999) (Associated Press) Dogs were used today to search for bodies in the wreckage left by a flash flood that sent a wall of water, mud and boulders through a mountain hamlet. At least one person was killed. BANGLADESH FLOODS SPREAD EVEN AS RIVER LEVELS FALL (12 July 1999) (Reuters) Fifty villages were swamped and 85,000 people were now homeless after Bangladesh's raging Gomti river broke through its embankment in a second place, officials said Friday. UN: THOUSANDS WITHOUT FOOD IN SUDAN (10 July 1999) NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) - Some 150,000 people have been trapped without food after heavy fighting resumed in southern Sudan, the U.N. World Food Program said Saturday. Thousands of people have fled their homes because of the fighting and had penetrated deeper into the Western Upper Nile region, the agency said in a statement. Thousands of others fled toward the already strained Bahr al-Ghazal region, where food shortages remain after last year's severe fighting and drought. The war has chased hundreds of thousands of mostly agricultural residents off their land, leaving them extremely vulnerable to drought. BOMB-HIT YUGOSLAVIA NOW DELUGED WITH RAIN (10 July 1999) (Reuters) Heavy rain and floods ravaged parts of Yugoslavia Saturday, compounding misery in a country already battered from 11 weeks of NATO bombing, officials said. HEAVY RAINS FLOOD LAS VEGAS STREETS (9 July 1999) (Associated Press) Heavy rain poured down on Las Vegas on Thursday, creating floods that smashed mobile homes, swallowed hundreds of cars and led to at least two deaths. RUSSIAN RESERVOIR FLOODS FEARED (7 July 1999) (Associated Press) A huge reservoir under illegal construction in central Russia will flood half of a national park and destroy endangered animals and plants, officials and activists said Wednesday. HEAT TOLL HITS POOR, ELDERLY (7 July 1999) WASHINGTON (AP) - For most people heat waves merely mean discomfort or inconvenience, but they can also kill by the thousands - mostly poor and elderly victims with bodies unable to cope with the temperature or wallets unable to afford the costs of cooling. Tornadoes, hurricanes, floods and earthquakes are less deadly, according to the National Weather Service. In the 40-year period from 1936 through 1975, almost 20,000 people were killed in the United States by the effects of heat and solar radiation. Many believe the tolls are understated, listing only those who succumb directly to temperature-related conditions such as heatstroke. "No one can know how many more deaths are advanced by heat wave weather, how many diseased or aging hearts surrender that under better conditions would have continued functioning," the National Weather Service reports. Indirect casualties can be staggering, with the stress leading to a jump in deaths from heart attacks and other causes. During a 1966 heat wave, the mortality rate more than doubled in New York City and leaped fivefold in St. Louis. Cities are particularly dangerous in heat waves. Paving and buildings absorb heat and warm the temperature, and air movement is restricted by buildings. SEVEN DEAD IN CINCINNATI-AREA HEAT WAVE (26 July 1999) CINCINNATI, Ohio (Reuters) - Sweltering heat in the Cincinnati area killed seven people over the weekend, a disaster that "hit people who were sick or elderly" the county coroner said Sunday. "I think it's really ironic that we've had more people die from heat stroke this weekend than we lost in the April 9 tornadoes when five people perished," Hamilton County Coroner Dr. Carl Parrott Jr. told Reuters. JULY HIGH-TEMPERATURE RECORDS IN THE NORTHEAST REGION MELTED IN MONTH'S FIRST SIX DAYS THE NORTHEAST REGIONAL CLIMATE CENTER) July 9, 1999 Contact: Blaine P. Friedlander, Jr. Office: (607) 255-3290 E-Mail: bpf2@cornell.edu ITHACA, N.Y. -- Thirty-one high-temperature records for major cities in the Northeast were broken or tied in the first six days of July. The region is on track for the hottest July since 1955. "We're off to a good start, that's for sure," says Keith Eggleston, senior climatologist at the Northeast Regional Climate Center at Cornell University. "Right now, it is too early to make a judgment call whether this July is going to be the hottest or not." He cautions that with two-thirds of the month remaining, lower temperatures could moderate the month's sizzling start. Early this month Boston, Pittsburgh and Washington saw temperatures average 6.7 degrees higher than normal (based on a 30-year average) for the first week of July. Newark, N.J., saw an average 7.8 degrees higher than normal for the same period, and Philadelphia saw a whopping 8.3 degrees higher average temperature. To appreciate just how warm it was this early in July, climatologists point to the 12- state region's last big July sizzle, in 1955, when the average temperature for the month was 74 degrees Fahrenheit, which was 4.4 degrees warmer than the normal temperature of 69.6 degrees for the period. Some more scorching highlights from this July: -- Islip, N.Y., set an all-time high-temperature recordJuly 5 when the mercury reached 102 degrees, one degree higher than the 1991 record. -- Reagan National Airport in Arlington, Va., set a record two days in a row. On July 5, the 102 degrees beat the old record of 101 degrees set 80 years before, and on July 6 the 103-degree mark handily broke the 22-year-old 100-degree record. -- The sizzling early start for July follows on the heels of the 16th warmest June in the Northeast. For the region, June averaged 2.2 degrees above the 30-year normal, well below June's record set in 1943 when the temperature was 69.3 degrees, or 4.5 degrees warmer than normal. This news release is available at http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/July99/NRCC.JulyHeatWave.bpf.html with a link to other Cornell news releases and photographs. For information on receiving Cornell news releases via e-mail, go to http://www.news.cornell.edu/subscribe.html or send a query to cunews@cornell.edu . Maximum temperature records set during early July 1999. City Date New Previous Dulles Airport, Va. 4th 97 96 in 1990 Beckley, W.Va. 4th 89 87 in 1994 Bridgeport, Conn. 5th 100 95 in 1955 Hartford, Conn. 5th 99 98 in 1955 Reagan Airport, Va. 5th 102 101 in 1919 Portland, Maine 5th 94 92 in 1955 Baltimore 5th 102 100 in 1990 Newark, N.J. 5th 103 101 in 1955 Binghamton, N.Y. (tie) 5th 91 91 in 1955 Central Park, N.Y. 5th 101 98 in 1955 *Islip, N.Y. 5th 102 101 in 1991 Allentown, Pa. (tie) 5th 98 98 in 1955 Harrisburg, Pa. 5th 102 101 in 1919 Philadelphia (tie) 5th 100 100 in 1919 Providence, R.I. (tie) 5th 98 98 in 1919 Dulles Airport, Va. (tie)5th 99 99 in 1990 Beckley, W.Va. 5th 90 89 in 1993 Bridgeport, Conn. 6th 96 93 in 1994 Hartford, Conn. 6th 99 98 in 1911 Reagan Airport, Va. 6th 103 100 in 1977 Baltimore 6th 99 98 in 1988 Atlantic City, N.J. 6th 99 93 in 1994 Newark, N.J. 6th 102 99 in 1986 Central Park, N.Y. 6th 101 98 in 1986 Allentown, Pa. 6th 100 97 in 1988 Harrisburg, Pa. 6th 102 99 in 1988 Philadelphia (tie) 6th 98 98 in 1994 Providence, R.I .(tie) 6th 97 97 in 1911 Beckley, W.Va. (tie) 6th 89 89 in 1994 Charleston, W.Va. 6th 96 95 in 1994 Huntington, W.Va. 6th 98 97 in 1949 * All time record high for Islip. Previous record high for Islip was 101 degrees on July 21, 1991. ----- Date: July 14, 1999 1. Science 2. Reports 3. Impacts 4. Policy/Solutions 5. Commentary SCIENCE A CONFIRMED LOCATION IN THE GALACTIC HALO FOR THE HIGH-VELOCITY CLOUD 'CHAIN A' http://www.nature.com/server-java/Propub/nature/400138A0.abs_frameset COMPUTER MODELS Global computer climate models excel at the global but not at the local level. A typical climate model might treat the Rocky Mountains as a single upslope from the Pacific while missing the Coastal Ranges and the Sierras altogether. Researchers here are developing a climate model accurate at scales ranging from less than a hundred meters to as large as the western United States. http://enews.lbl.gov INFLUENCE OF SNOWFALL AND MELT TIMING ON TREE GROWTH IN SUBARCTIC EURASIA by E. A. Vaganov, M. K. Hughes, A. V. Kirdyanov, F. H. Schweingruber & P. P. Silkin http://www.nature.com/server-java/Propub/nature/400149A0.abs_frameset NITROGEN OXIDE EMISSIONS AFTER NITROGEN ADDITIONS IN TROPICAL FORESTS by Sharon J. Hall & Pamela A. Matson http://www.nature.com/server-java/Propub/nature/400152A0.abs_frameset SAHARA AND ARABIA DESERTS ONCE GREEN Slight changes in Earth's orbit and the tilt of its axis thousands of years ago kicked off a series of events in the sub tropics that led to the desertification of the Saharan and Arabian regions of the world, according to researchers at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. The changes in Earth's orbit and the tilt of its axis, according the researchers, headed by Martin Clausen of the Potsdam Institute, happened gradually but the changes in North Africa's vegetation and climate were abrupt. http://www.enn.com/news/enn-stories/1999/07/071299/sahara_4256.asp ANTARCTIC DINOSAURS CLUE TO WARMER CLIMATE WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) - Discoveries in Antarctica of bones from the time of dinosaurs are exciting scientists pondering the mysteries of past global warming and continental drift, an American geologist said July 9, 1999. http://www.usatoday.com/weather/news/w709din.htm GLOW-IN-THE-DARK CLOUDS: A GLOBAL WARNING? A luminescent meteorological phenomenon rarely seen in the contiguous United States, noctilucent clouds, made a surprise visit last Tuesday. One expert says increased carbon dioxide may be to blame. http://www.ngnews.com/news/1999/06/062899/noctilucent_4018.asp REPORTS DEVELOPING COUNTRIES & GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE (June 16, 1999) This report from the Pew Center presents the results of a RAND study that suggests that business as usual investment (BAU) trends are not the only path to strong economic growth. If developing countries adopt different policies and planning methods for their power generation sectors, technologies other than those included in BAU projections could provide lower local and global environmental impacts and produce similar or even higher economic benefits. This study compared the possible impacts that different policies and technology mixes could have on economic growth, air pollution, and CO2 emissions from new electric power generation in developing countries. For a free color copy of reports, please contact the Pew Center on Global Climate Change at (703) 516-4146. These reports can also be viewed on-line at http://www.pewclimate.org/. FARMERS PART OF GLOBAL WARMING SOLUTION A recent study conducted by the Agriculture Department's Agricultural Research Service shows that modern farming practices may in fact help curb the greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming. By shifting away from the practice of tilling land, farmers have helped reduce the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide, one of the greenhouse gases thought to cause global warming. "A dramatic change in tillage techniques shifted U.S. farm soils from net carbon dioxide producers to net accumulators of carbon in the form of valuable soil organic matters," said ARS Administrator Floyd Horn. Horn's comments are based on the findings of a comprehensive study spearheaded by Raymond Allmaras, an ARS soil scientist based in St. Paul, Minn. Allmaras' study included a thorough search of published reports and surveys for several major crops and a comparison between various conditions in 1940 and 1990. The full news release can be viewed on the U.S. Department of Agriculture's website at http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/1999/990517.htm. THE SCIENCE OF CLIMATE CHANGE: GLOBAL AND U.S. PERSPECTIVES (June 29, 1999) The new study published by the Pew Center "Science and Climate Change: Global and US Perspectives" shows a higher rate of warming and sea level rise than previously expected. The report details new information on climate change: including impacts on temperature, sea level, precipitation and extreme weather events. For a free color copy of reports, please contact the Pew Center on Global Climate Change at (703) 516-4146. These reports can also be viewed on-line at http://www.pewclimate.org/. IMPACTS "MALARIA OUTBREAK KILLS 1,000 PEOPLE [World Scene]." Washington Times, 13 July 99, A15. Nearly 90,000 people have been hospitalized and at least 1,000 people have died in a malaria outbreak in western Kenya. "THE RIGHT MOVES, WHEN HEAT CAN KILL [Science Times]." New York Times, 13 July 99, D8. Article lists heat-related illnesses, including sunburn and heatstroke, their symptoms and how the National Weather Service advises reacting to them. Included are tips from the New York City Department of Health and the Mayor's office on how to cope with intense heat and humidity. http://www10.nytimes.com/library/national/science/071399hth-vital-signs.html TIPS OFFERED TO BEAT THE HEAT As the eastern United States suffers under record-breaking temperatures, the Alliance to Save Energy has offered up a list of energy-efficient tips to help people keep their cool without breaking the bank. These energy-efficient tips will not only help people save money, but also prevent power failures on the utility grid during peak consumption hours. http://www.enn.com/news/enn-stories/1999/07/070799/hotdays_4196.asp CORAL A common form of air pollution that may be contributing to the change in the Earth's climate could also be implicated in altering the chemistry of seawater. This chemical variation could have dire consequences for the ecosystems that surround coral reefs. Earthwatch Radio (1:52) http://www.enn.com/enn-multimedia-archive/1999/07/070899/070899walk_4223.asp "HEAT PROMPTS FISH KILLS, BUT HELPS TO SAVE CLAMS [DIGEST: NEW JERSEY]." New York Times, 12 July 99, A14. Thousands of trout and white suckers died in the South Branch of the Raritan River in Somerset, New Jersey as a result of last week's record-breaking heat. On the flip side, clam fishermen say that the water temperatures, reaching 80 degrees, salvaged the shellfish harvest by breaking up a massive algae bloom that had been starving clams. "STORM INJURES DOZENS AND WRECKS FOREST [National News Briefs]." New York Times, 8 July 99, A14. 80 mph winds that swept through northeastern Minnesota on Sunday and early Monday injured about 35 people camping near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area and destroyed an estimated 12 million trees. Among the trees was a 300-year-old stand of white pines. COMPLETE LOSS OF WORLD'S CORAL REEFS FORECAST BRISBANE, Australia, July 8, 1999 (ENS) - One of the marine world's great natural treasures - its coral reefs - faces widespread catastrophe from climate change, according to a new scientific projection. Unrestrained warming cannot occur without the complete loss of coral reefs on a global scale, the report states. http://ens.lycos.com/ens/jul99/1999L-07-08-04.html DEATH TOLL RISES IN CHINA FLOODS The latest death toll in floods along the Yangtze river has risen to 240, and another 60 million people are now threatened by flooding. The figures were announced by China's Civil Affairs Ministry on Tuesday. The flooding, caused since late June by heavy rain, has damaged 3.5m hectares of land and totally destroyed 660,000 ha of crops, with Anhui, Zhejiang, Hubei and Jiangxi Provinces the worst affected. http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/asia-pacific/newsid_386000/386397.stm GREAT LAKES IN DIRE STRAITS Water levels in some parts of the Great Lakes are lower than they have been in a lifetime. That means big trouble for everyone and everything that lives along the shores of the world's freshwater giants. On Lake Superior, water levels are at their lowest point in 70 years, mostly because this year's spring melt was quick and the weather has been dry, with an abundance of sunshine to suck up water from the lake's surface. http://www.ottawacitizen.com/national/990709/2586453.html IRAN DROUGHT CAUSES CRISIS DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) -- Lack of rain in Iran has parched crops nationwide, causing billions of dollars of damage, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported Monday. The news agency quoted Deputy Interior Minister Ahmad Khorram as saying that Iran had 40 percent less rain this year than last year. "The drought crisis is unprecedented in the past 40 years" and the damage so far is about 10 billion rials ($3.3 billion at the official exchange rate), IRNA quoted Khorram as saying. He said that in northern Gilan province alone 6,000 hectares (14,820 acres) of rice plantations had dried up, and another 3,000 hectares (7,410 acres) are nearly dry, reported IRNA, monitored in Dubai. Water levels in the country's reservoirs have dropped by 3 billion cubic meters compared to last year, the Iran Daily newspaper reported Monday. http://europe.cnn.com/WORLD/meast/9907/05/BC-Iran-Drought.ap/index.html NORTHEAST U.S. SIZZLES IN RECORD TEMPERATURES "It's too hot to be outside," says Ruth Anderson of New Haven, Conn. Call it the understatement of the summer. From Illinois to the East Coast, from Massachusetts to North Carolina, the mercury has been soaring. In New York, they're baking at a heat index 112 degrees. Newark, N.J., hit 103 Monday. Bridgeport, Conn., and Raleigh, N.C., both broke into triple digits. Even Portland, Maine, has wandered into the 90s. And if that isn't enough to make you downright uncomfortable, consider this: when the Reds and Astros played an afternoon baseball game in Cincinnati, a thermometer on the field registered 154 degrees. http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/990706heat.html REPORT WARNS NEW YORK OF GLOBAL WARMING'S PERILS New York Times; June 30, 1999 New York City will be hit hard by the effects of global warming over the next century, as the sea level rises and washes away beaches, floods the subways and creates new wetland areas in Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island, an environmental group said Tuesday. U.S. PLAINS BATTERED BY FLOODS, HIGH WIND Heavy rains pelted the South and Midwest, swelling rivers, slicking highways and causing at least four deaths, safety officials said Tuesday. Three deaths in Alabama and one in Georgia were blamed on torrential rains Monday, while runoff flooded basements in Kansas City, Missouri, and slowed the wheat harvest in neighboring Kansas [Source: MSNBC, 29 June 1999] POLICY US STEPS ON THE GAS TO SLOW GLOBAL WARMING Buying a new car seems an unlikely way to contribute to the fight against global warming. But US consumers may soon be able to do just that, thanks to a new generation of vehicles called 'ultra-lites'. Built from lightweight carbon composites, these cars could create a huge new market for solid carbon. And that, in turn, could stimulate demand for an unlikely raw material - atmospheric carbon dioxide. http://ci.mond.org/current/991307.htm WHAT'S GOOD FOR THE CLIMATE CAN BE GOOD FOR INDUSTRY Financial Times; (Letter to the Editor); 29 June 1999 >From Mr Charlie Kronick and others. Sir, The more the climate change levy comes under attack from industry (report, June 11) the more important it is to remember that many interests support it for very good reasons. Industry claims that the levy will damage competitiveness. Lord Marshall, however, saw a clear role for the climate change levy as an incentive to increase competitiveness, not to undermine it. In any case, exemptions and reductions for the heaviest energy users can be readily identified and negotiated. Just as crucial to the success of the climate change levy will be an exemption for all energy generated by renewable sources. The reality is that putting an appropriate levy on energy use sends a fundamental message to industry: taxation will be used to penalise polluters, so invest in renewable energy and energy efficiency as the foundation of the future economy. Climate change is a global problem. Fighting a rearguard action to resist climate protection measures will not solve that problem nor, just as importantly, will it do anything to improve UK plc's performance in a future where carbon emissions become increasingly expensive. Early action to reduce carbon emissions confers "first mover" advantages to the companies that see the benefits of sustainable investment strategies. The climate change levy should be the first step in the process to eliminate dependence on fossil fuels. Protecting the climate will necessarily lead to fundamental changes in the way business operates. Industry must realise that good news for the climate can be good news for them as well. Charlie Kronick, Director, Climate Action Network UK, Charles Secrett, executive director, Friends of the Earth, Peter Madden, director, Green Alliance, Peter Melchett, executive director, Greenpeace UK, Robert Napier, chief executive, WWF UK HIGHWAY BUILDING WILL INCREASE EMISSIONS OF CARBON BY 40 MILLION TONS, Official Says. Daily Environment Report, June 28, 1999, pA-5-6. If highway construction continues at its current pace, an added 40 million metric tons of carbon will be released into the air over the next decade, according to an Environmental Protection Agency official. Robert N. Nolan, an analyst with EPA's Office of Policy, said the estimate may be conservative. Nolan's conclusions are based upon his recently presented report, "Relationships Between Highway Capacity and Induced Vehicle Travel." Studying data gathered from around the country, he looked at whether a relationship existed between the miles traveled by vehicles and the amount of new-road construction. Nolan found that new road construction does not necessarily mean less congestion in the long term, although there can be some short-term relief. If national road networks continue to expand at current rates, between now and 2010 an additional 40 million metric tons of carbon will be released into the atmosphere, the research showed. With transportation budgets increasing, "It is likely we'll build [roadways] at a faster rate. It might be on the conservative side, yes," he said. Nolan said Department of Transportation statistics show that the total number of miles traveled by vehicles in the US increased 3.2 percent a-year between 1970 and 1993. The annual pollution growth during the same period was 0.9 percent. The report is available at: http://www.epa.gov/tp/trb-rn.pdf COMMENTARY GLOBAL WARNINGS We still have birds because we paid attention to warnings about the indiscriminate use of pesticides. But Australia is not listening to warnings about climate change. http://www.theage.com.au/daily/990708/news/specials/news3.html Date: July 9, 1999 SCIENCE RAPID ACCUMULATION AND TURNOVER OF SOIL CARBON IN A RE-ESTABLISHING FOREST by Daniel D. Richter, Daniel Markewitz, Susan E. Trumbore & Carol G. Wells http://www.nature.com/server-java/Propub/nature/400056A0.abs_frameset A RECORD OF ATMOSPHERIC HALOCARBONS DURING THE TWENTIETH CENTURY FROM POLAR FIRN AIR james h. Butler, mark battle, michael l. Bender, stephen a. Montzka, andrew d. Clarke, eric s. Saltzman, cara m. Sucher, jeffrey p. Severinghaus & james w. Elkins http://www.nature.com/server-java/Propub/nature/399749A0.abs_frameset CIRCUMPOLAR ECOSYSTEMS 4 http://www.brandonu.ca/cnsc/conf.htm CHURCHILL NORTHERN STUDIES CENTRE (CNSC) http://www.brandonu.ca/cnsc/ The Churchill Northern Studies Centre (CNSC) has announced the fourth conference on Circumpolar Ecosystems and an outdoor workshop focused on "ecological aspects of winter-dominated systems." The conference and workshop will be held in Churchill, Manitoba, during the dead of the arctic winter: February 16-21, 2000. Interested participants should contact the CNSC (address at Webpage) at "the earliest possible convenience. From The Scout Report for Science & Engineering, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-1999. http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/ LOW CLOUD TYPE OVER THE GLOBAL OCEAN -- JISAO [netCDF, binary, ascii] http://tao.atmos.washington.edu/data_sets/low_cloud/ This cloud type dataset has been provided by the Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean (JISAO), a joint institute of the University of Washington and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The dataset covers "daytime-only seasonal climatologies of individual low cloud types over the ocean" and was constructed by climatologist Joel Norris for the period 1954-1992, using synoptic surface ship observations. Data are available in three formats: netCDF (COARDS convention), plain binary (4-byte floating point; no FORTRAN-style records), or ascii. From The Scout Report for Science & Engineering, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-1999. http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/ _CLIMATE MONITOR_ ONLINE http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/climon/ The Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia (UK) provides this interesting monthly newsletter on climate around the globe. Originally published in print, _Climate Monitor_ is now exclusively available online. At the site, users may browse the Monthly weather summaries for various global regions (since November 1998), Climate data and visualization datasets (includes downloadable datasets from the Climatic Research Unit), and Tiempo Newswatch (a climate current affairs page), or they may link to other sites with current weather and climate events. From The Scout Report for Science & Engineering, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-1999. http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/ OCEANOGRAPHY AT UEA http://www.mth.uea.ac.uk/climateinfo.html Provided by the University of East Anglia or Norwich, England, the Oceanography at UEA Website includes a wealth of information on research projects in the field of oceanography. Physical oceanographers from the School of Mathematics, the School of Environmental Sciences, and the Climate Research Unit are involved in these projects, which include the FRAM project, the OCCAM project, the WOCE cruise A23, and the Greenland Sea Tracer Experiment. Each project is described briefly, in some cases with links to research results, summarized data, or maps of fieldwork areas. The site is an excellent resource for other researchers of oceanography. [JJS] From The Scout Report for Science & Engineering, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-1999. http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/ "THE SCIENCE OF CLIMATE CHANGE: GLOBAL AND US PERSPECTIVES" [.pdf] http://www.pewclimate.org/projects/env_science.html The Pew Center for Global Climate Change has posted this report entitled "The Science of Climate Change: Global and US Perspectives," by Tom Wigley of the National Center For Atmospheric Research. The report discusses historical climate patterns, current climate changes, and predictions for the future (including the ability to detect significant changes). Introductory sections of the report may be viewed on-site, or the full document may be downloaded (.pdf format). From The Scout Report for Science & Engineering, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-1999. http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/ LACK OF ICEBERGS ANOTHER SIGN OF GLOBAL WARMING? For reasons no one understands--although global warming is a top suspect--the Grand Banks shipping lanes, which are located southeast of Newfoundland, were an ice-free zone. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/285/5424/37 ANTARTICA'S CLIMATE IMPACT TO BE ASSESSED Scientists may soon know more about Antarctica's effect on global climate change. Fifty expedition members, including glaciologists and meterologists, will be on board the ice-breaker, the Aurora Australis, when it heads back to the Antarctic in two weeks. The scientists will make another attempt to research the unusual ice-free regions which form during winter, work they were forced to abandon last July. http://www.abc.net.au/news/state/tas/archive/mettas-4jul1999-6. SCIENTIFIC CLIMATE CONGRESS CONVENES IN AUSTRALIA Researchers from around the world are in Sydney this week to discuss the impact of climate change in the Asia-Pacific. The conference theme is that it's "Late, but not too late". http://www.abc.net.au/news/state/nsw/archive/metnsw-5jul1999-3.htm OZONE-DEPLETING GASES ARE NOT NATURAL Most of the gases responsible for stratospheric ozone depletion are produced by human activities and are not naturally occurring in the atmosphere, according to measurements of air trapped in the polar snowpack. Federal and university scientists measured firn * the air stuck in the polar snowpack in Antarctica and Greenland *: and found major ozone-depleting gases were not present in detectable amounts in the atmosphere in the late 19th or early 20th centuries. http://www.enn.com/news/enn-stories/1999/07/070299/ozone_4144.asp LA NINA IS ALMOST GONE The La Nia weather phenomenon is on its last legs, bringing an end to one of the most costly El Nio/La Nia weather cycles in history. The latest satellite data from the U.S.-French TOPEX/Poseidon mission indicates that the equatorial Pacific Ocean is warming and returning to normal as La Nia dwindles. http://www.enn.com/news/enn-stories/1999/07/070199/done_4117.asp YET ANOTHER LA NINA ON THE WAY? DEFINITELY NO EL NINO (Reuters, July 5, 1999) -- Australian weather scientists said this week that the La Nina phenomenon appeared to be fading in Australia but another one could be on the way. Weather indices and sea surface temperatures were suggesting a weakening of La Nina while most computer models were predicting cool to average, or neutral, sea surface temperatures and conditions. But some weather models indicated a re-emergence of La Nina over the next six months. However, none predicted any sign of a return to the crop-shriveling El Nino drought pattern that only recently withered plantations in Southeast Asia. The El Nino-La Nina cycle is linked to the warming and cooling of the Pacific Ocean and some scientists suggest the cycle may be speeding up because of global warming. But others say a connection has not yet been proved beyond all doubt. (Contributions from Anchalee Koetsawang in Bangkok, Tan Lee Lee in Kuala Lumpur, Lewa Pardomuan in Jakarta, Dolly Aglay in Manila, Michael Byrnes in Sydney and the Hanoi bureau). EFFECTS OF GLOBAL WARMING Scientists on several continents are finding that the world is changing very rapidly due to global warming. For instance, three new studies show that birds are being affected by climate change. Some are nesting and laying eggs earlier while others are moving north to cooler climes. Earthwatch Radio (2:09) http://www.enn.com/enn-multimedia-archive/1999/07/070799/070799hota_4191.asp IMPACTS SE ASIA WEATHER - LA NINA MAKES FOR WET DRY SEASON July 5, 1999 By James Poole SINGAPORE (Reuters) - The wet weather phenomenon -- La Nina -- is keeping farmers on their toes in Southeast Asia, bringing heavy rain and floods to some areas in their traditional dry season, officials and traders said Sunday. Abundant recent rains over coffee, cocoa, rubber, oil palm estates and rice terraces from Thailand to the Philippines have soaked plantations and replenished water reserves run dry by La Nina's twin -- the arid El Nino. But officials warn that a prolonged deluge might disrupt planting, harvesting and transport in the region if the pattern persists over the rest of the year. "Agriculture is threatened by La Nina if heavy rains occur," said Nathaniel Cruz, meteorologist at the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration in Manila. Cocoa and coffee farmers on the Indonesian islands of Sulawesi and Sumatra already say incessant rains have damaged crops, though Singapore traders are skeptical that the problems are as severe as growers say. Overall, the unusual rains have brightened crop prospects throughout Southeast Asia, commodity analysts say. For farmers, the downside is that market expectations of higher output have sent world prices reeling -- those denominated in U.S. dollars, that is -- and this has combined with stronger local currencies to hammer local farmers' income. Tumbling prices have, though, benefited downstream activities such as poultry, livestock and food producers. LA NINA TO LINGER ON AND ON...AND ON? A Thai meteorological department expert said rains would probably last until October, especially in the south. "We believe the influence from La Nina will provide greater-than-usual rainfall in Thailand until the end of our rainy season in October," the expert said. In Indonesia, an official with the Jakarta-based meteorology office kept to earlier forecasts of a "wet" dry season. "We stick to our earlier prediction that this year's dry season will be wet. What we are afraid of is that it can be too wet," he said. "We learnt that La Nina will end in April, but it's been delayed to August...and now December," he added. In the Philippines, rains have fallen in the farmlands in recent days enabling rice planting. In Malaysia too, rains returned after June 20 and helped the oil palm and rubber plantations. In Vietnam, seasonal rains arrived earlier than usual in mid-April this year across the southern part of the country and the central highlands. "NATURAL" DISASTERS A MISNOMER, UN LEADER SAYS GENEVA, Switzerland, July 6, 1999 (ENS) - "It is a tragic irony that 1998, the penultimate year of the Disaster Reduction Decade, was also a year in which natural disasters increased so dramatically," United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Monday. Annan was speaking at the closing ceremonies for the United Nations International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction (IDNDR) at the International Conference Centre of Geneva. http://ens.lycos.com/ens/jul99/1999L-07-06-04.html "FISH KILL MAY BE WORST IN DECADE." Washington Post, 2 July 99, B1, B7. The drought-induced death of more than 200,000 fish, mostly minnows, in Maryland waterways in the last five days is believed to be the worst in more than a decade, according to the Department of Natural Resources. The drought, expected to continue through July, aids the spread of algae which consumes oxygen from waterways and causes fish to move closer to the water's surface seeking oxygen. The overall fish population of the Chesapeake Bay is not expected to be affected. "DROUGHT KILLING THOUSANDS OF FISH [Metro in Brief: Maryland]." Washington Post, 1 July 99, B3. Over the past week thousands of fish in tributaries of the Patapsco and Magothy rivers have died from lack of oxygen due to a drought. Eel, yellow and white perch, chain pickerel, menhaden, catfish and largemouth bass are among the fish that have died under conditions that have not occurred in over a decade. DEADLY U.S. HEAT WAVES TAKE TOLLS The heat wave deaths come miserably, one here, another there, with none of the drama of a hurricane or twister, flood or lightning. Yet an unyielding sun claims more lives than any of those events HANTA VIRUS "Unwelcome Guests: Summer Vacation Spots May Lure Infected Mice [Health Journal]." Wall Street Journal, 21 June 99, B1. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says in recent months it has seen more cases than average of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, or HPS, a lethal lung infection triggered by inhaling tiny particles of rodent waste. Over 217 people in 30 states have been sickened. This column advises vacationers not to sweep or vacuum infested areas of cabins or houses, but douse the area with a 10% solution of chlorine bleach, and wear boots, gloves, mask, and protective clothing while wiping up waste with wet paper towels or cloths. People who have been near mice and get ill should seek immediate medical attention. The disease begins as "a raging flu--cough, fever, aches, malaise, and nausea [that] leads swiftly to respiratory failure and death in 45% of cases. HANTAVIRUS WARNING ISSUED. Health Officials Say Vacationers and Residents of Rural Areas Face Higher Risk This Year." Washington Post Health, 6 July 99, pp 8-9. Federal and state officials are warning people visiting national parks or living in rural locations not touch or feed rodents, and to take extra precautions when cleaning rodent-infested areas. Hantavirus, carried by deer mice, causes severe lung infection and is often fatal. The disease is expected to be a larger problem this year because the population of rodents is larger, and the infection rate of deer mice in some areas is as high as 35 to 40 percent. This is higher that the 30 percent infection rate among mice during the 1993 hantavirus epidemic. Although most cases have occurred in the Western U.S., warning applies to all states because the disease has been found nationwide. Suggestions for avoiding the virus include airing out cabins before occupying them, checking campsites or dwellings for rodent droppings or nests, wet-mopping instead of sweeping, and cleaning up rodent droppings with a disinfectant or solution of 10 percent bleach. "HEAT WAVE KILLS 10 NATIONWIDE [Nation]." Washington Times, 7 July 99, A3. "Heat Sets Records, Claims Lives and Strains Utilities." New York Times, 7 July 99, A1, A20. "Utilities Pushed To Limit by Heat." Washington Post, 7 July 99, A1, A5. At least 10 persons have died, two in Washington, D.C., from the record-breaking heat wave that enveloped the United States in the past two days. The strain on utility companies caused many electrical blackouts across the nation as well. Around the District, temperatures rose to 103 degrees, 2 degrees hotter than the record set 22 years ago. Advice to residents included staying indoors, drinking lots of water and taking it easy, not to mention limiting use of air conditioning and other electric appliances. RODENTS WREAK HAVOC ON CALIFORNIA AGRICULTURE Mike Young has gophers. Pete Belluomini has squirrels. John Ohanneson has mice. Dan Hernstedt has voles. POLICY US 'WASTES VITAL TIME' AS CLIMATE-CHANGE MINORITY SOWS CONFUSION Scientists have accused the US congress of ignoring solid data on climate change and wasting time that should be used to counter the effects of human-generated greenhouse gases. They say that Congress should not be distracted by 'contrarian' views of a handful of scientists who dispute the mainstream scientific consensus on climate change. http://www.nature.com/server-java/Propub/nature/v400n6739.docframe SCIENTISTS CLIMB CAPITOL STEPS TO WARN OF GLOBAL WARMING. Lycos Environmental News Service, June 30, 1999. Full text available at: http://ens.lycos.com/ens/jun99/1999L-06-30-09.html Fifty scientists from 23 countries gathered on the steps of the US Capitol to warn Congressmen about global warming. Congressman Rush Holt (D-NJ) joined climate change experts to say to his fellow Congressmen that global warming is a serious threat that demands action. Dr. Walt Oechel, director of the Global Change Research Group and professor of biology at San Diego State University, said, "We are astonished that some members of Congress continue to ignore warnings from the scientific community. Climate scientists from around the world are in wide agreement that global warming is real and could greatly disrupt society." The scientists accused Congress of isolating themselves and wanting to wish away global warming, even though major corporations like General Motors, British Petroleum, DuPont and Boeing have acknowledged the threat of global warming to the public health and environment. AUSTRALIA COLLABORATES ON GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS CUTS SYDNEY, Australia, July 6, 1999 (ENS) - Australia will implement projects in three other countries that are designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. http://ens.lycos.com/ens/jul99/1999L-07-06-02.html "GREEN GAMES" TO COOL ALL VENUES WITH OZONE DEPLETING SUBSTANCES SYDNEY, Australia, July 2, 1999 (ENS) - Greenpeace has obtained a confidential schedule that confirms the Co-ordination Authority for the 2000 Olympics will not use refrigerants that comply with the Environmental Guidelines in any of the Olympic venues. Instead, ozone depleting substances will be used to cool the buildings. http://ens.lycos.com/ens/jul99/1999L-07-02-02.html EMISSIONS OF CO2 FROM FOSSIL FUELS UP SLIGHTLY FOR 1998, EIA ESTIMATES SAYS. Daily Environment Report, July 1, 1999, pA-3. US carbon dioxide emissions rose at their lowest level in 1998 since 1991. Emissions from the burning of fossil fuels rose by 0.4 percent in 1998, said the Energy Information Administration (EIA). The small emissions increase occurred, despite economic growth of 3.9 percent in 1998,. EIA said the increase of energy consumption during the hotter-than-normal summer were "more than offset by a much warmer-than-normal winter, which reduced consumption of heating fuels," in its preliminary estimate of greenhouse gas emissions. Fossil energy consumption emissions amounted to 1,484 million metric tons in 1998, which was a slight increase over the 1,479 million metric tons in 1997. Fossil emissions in 1998 accounted for 635 million metric tons from petroleum, 540 million metric tons from coal, and 309 million metric tons came from natural gas. One sector that saw an increase in emissions was the electric utilities, whose emissions rose by 3.2 percent in 1998 from 1997. EIA said, the warm weather "created a higher demand for residential electricity thus contributing to emissions growth." EIA's preliminary estimate is available at: http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/flash/flash.html . SOLUTIONS HONDA HYBRID TO BE CALLED 'INSIGHT' WILL FEATURE (IMA) INTEGRATED MOTOR ASSIST SYSTEM, LIGHTWEIGHT ALUMINUM BODY STRUCTURE TORRANCE, Calif., July 6 -/E-Wire/-- The first gasoline-electric hybrid vehicle available in the U.S. will be called the Honda insight when it goes on sale this December, American Honda Motor Co., Inc., announced today. http://ens.lycos.com/e-wire/July99/06july9902.html "CARMAKERS DETOUR AROUND CAFE RULES." USA Today, 2 July 99, 3B. This article lists car companies that don't make any models fuel-efficient enough to satisfy the federal government's fuel economy standards, resulting in fines that companies pay and accept as a cost of business. The federal government requires that automakers average the fuel economies of all the vehicles it sells in a model year, called a corporate average fuel economy (CAFE). "DEATH BY THE GALLON [Special Report]." USA Today, 2 July 99, 1B, 2B. Lengthy report based on a USA Today analysis of previously unpublished fatality statistics suggests that rising deaths from car accidents may be related to more people driving fuel-efficient smaller cars. The methodology and interpretation of the study is accompanied by a timeline describing the history of small cars in America. TURBINE "Garrett, Pennsylvania [Across the USA]." USA Today, 6 July 99, 8A. A $10 million power plant to be built in Somerset County will include fifteen wind turbines that will generate 25 million kilowatt hours of electricity per year on land that had been stripped to find coal. The plant is expected to begin operating in January and will be the largest windmill- based power plant in the East. AMERICANS' ENERGY APPETITE SKYROCKETS WASHINGTON, DC, July 7, 1999 (ENS) - The use of energy in the United States has jumped dramatically in the last half-century. Energy consumption increased by 194 percent from 1949 to 1998, although the U.S. population grew only 82 percent, according to the "Annual Energy Review" released today by the Energy Information Agency, a division of the federal Department of Energy. http://ens.lycos.com/ens/jul99/1999L-07-07-06.html BUSINESSES, HOMES GETTING THEIR OWN POWER PLANTS Central Park police in New York are pioneers in what experts see as a new era of power production. Growing numbers of businesses are turning on small, economical and reliable power plants to wean themselves from utilities. ENERGY DEPARTMENT FUNDS REDUCED ENERGY USE http://ens.lycos.com/ens/jul99/1999 FUEL CELLS IN THE HOME Fuel cells convert hydrogen and oxygen into energy that is clean, quiet and cost effective. There has been a lot of talk about using fuel cells in cars, but companies are also developing this technology for use in the home. Great Lakes Radio Consortium (0:59) http://www.enn.com/enn-multimedia-archive/1999/07/070799/070799glrc7_4190.asp ORGANIC WINERY GOES SOLAR http://ens.lycos.com/ens/jul99/1999L-07-07-09.html POWER OUTAGE HITS 200,000 IN SWELTERING N.Y The deadly heat wave that has gripped the eastern United States from Virginia to New England strained utilities to the breaking point, leaving tens of thousands of New York City residents without electricity today. WHITE HOUSE LAUNCHES WIND POWER INITIATIVE The latest White House renewable energy initiative, Wind Powering America, which seeks to increase the use of wind energy in the United States has been launched by Energy Secretary Bill Richardson . The program would supply at least five percent of the nation's electricity needs with wind energy by the year 2020. More than 5,000 megawatts of wind energy would be installed by 2005, and 10,000 megawatts would come on line by 2010. Eight states now have more than 20 megawatts of wind capacity. The initiative seeks to double that number to 16 by 2005, and triple it to 24 by 2010. The federal government's use of wind generated electricity would go up to five percent by 2010. Speaking to Monday's opening session of WINDPOWER *99, the annual conference of the wind energy industry, Richardson also announced nearly $1.2 million in Department of Energy grants to promote wind energy projects. "Wind energy has been the fastest growing source of energy in the world during the past decade and now represents a major economic opportunity for the United States," Richardson said. "Wind Powering America, together with these latest grants, will help combat global climate change by reducing carbon emissions while also helping us promote regional economic development and increased energy security." Meanwhile, the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), a federal power marketing agency, announced plans to purchase 1.8 megawatts of energy, enough to power about 700 homes, from three wind power turbines at the Foote Creek Wind Energy Project located near Arlington, Wyoming. http://ens.lycos.com/ens/jun99/1999L-06-23-09.html DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY PLAGUED BY POOR PROJECT MANAGEMENT The U.S. Department of Energy is plagued by poor project management practices that result in frequent cost overruns and delays in completing work, says a new National Research Council report. http://national-academies.org/ CONTINGENCY PLAN ADDRESSES Y2K PROBLEMS AT NUCLEAR PLANTS The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) says it is unlikely that the Year 2000 (Y2K) computer bug will cause problems at nuclear plants. Still, the agency has developed a contingency plan to ensure that public health, safety and the environment are protected if unforeseen problems do occur. The contingency plan calls for staffing NRC's headquarters Operations Center in Rockville, Maryland, beginning at noon on December 31. Backup will be provided by NRC's regional office in Arlington, Texas. NRC staff will be stationed at each nuclear power plant site and uranium enrichment facility site and in each NRC regional Incident Response Center. Portable satellite telephones will provide backup communication, if needed, at each plant and facility site. The NRC says it will consider requests from licensed facilities that some regulations not be enforced if flexibility in enforcement would help maintain a reliable power grid. Any Y2K problems reported by U.S. nuclear power plants or plants in other countries will passed on to U.S. plant operators. The full text of the final plan is online at: http://www.nrc.gov/NRC/NEWS/year2000.html http://ens.lycos.com/ens/jun99/1999L-06-15-09.html "LAST CHERNOBYL REACTOR SHUT DOWN FOR REPAIRS [World Scene]." Washington Times, 1 July 99, A15. The fourth and last reactor still operating at the Chernobyl nuclear-power plant was shut down last night as a four-month overhaul is set to begin. Several hundred cracks in the reactor's pipes have been found in the past two years. LOW-LEVEL RADIOACTIVE WASTE SHOPPED TO WESTERN TEXAS "Odessa, Texas [Across the USA]." USA Today, 1 July 99, 8A. This fall shipments of low-level radioactive waste from military sites will be railed to a nuclear waste dump in western Andrews County for disposal. The five-year, $96 million contract for the work is shared by Waste Control Specialists and the Army Corps of Engineers. STATISTICS LINK INFANT MORTALITY, NEW JERSEY NUCLEAR PLANTS A new study has found statistical connections between the two Salem Nuclear Plants in New Jersey and infant mortality in Salem County from the time the reactors first went on-line until at least the early 1990s. In 13 of 16 years since 1977, while infant death rates were going down in the rest of New Jersey, infant death rates were going up in Salem County. However, in 1994 through 1996 when the Salem plants were largely or completely shutdown, infant death rates were lower than the 1977 levels. Similar results are also found on the rate of stillborn children, said study author Joseph Mangano , research associate with the Radiation and Public Health Project (RPHP), a nonprofit educational and scientific organization established by scientists and physicians dedicated to understanding the relationships between low-level nuclear radiation and public health. "This startling finding is one more reason why the Salem Nukes should be shut down," said Norm Cohen , coordinator for the UNPLUG Salem Campaign of the Coalition for Peace and Justice. Cohen urged New Jersey families to send their children*s baby teeth to Operation Tooth Fairy, an RPHP program using teeth from around the country to help gauge radiation exposures in different locations. http://ens.lycos.com/ens/jun99/1999L-06-15-09.html --- Date: July 1, 1999 SENATE AMENDMENT THREATENS FEDERAL ENERGY EFFICIENY INITIATIVES: COULD COST TAXYPAYERS $1 BILLION In a move described today as "unbelievable" by President Bill Clinton, Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS) inserted language into the Senate Interior Appropriations bill designed to block the implementation of President Clinton's sweeping executive order issued earlier this month requiring federal agencies to cut their energy use by 30 percent over the next decade. http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/990625/dc_allnce__1.html EXECUTIVE ORDER ON BIOMASS? The White House Office of Science and Technology and the Department of Energy are nearing completion of a new Executive Order to promote biomass and biobased products. This could be a positive step for the environment by developing renewable energy sources and environmentally sound materials. However, the proposed Order uses forests to provide the feed stock for these materials and energy supplies. Overcutting forests on both public and private lands and the proliferation of chip mills suggest that new tax incentives to log forests for biobased products are untimely. Please contact David Gardener, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), at 202/260- 4332 and let him know you are opposed to the forest provisions in the Bioenergy Executive Order. Provide him information about unsustainable logging on both private and public lands in your region, particulary the environmental problems related to chip mills. [Source: LANDSCOPE, News and Views from American Lands - June 29, 1999] ======================================= TAX INCENTIVES FOR ENERGY EFFICIENCY INTRODUCED IN CONGRESS Representative Bob Matsui , a California Democrat, introduced the Clinton administration's package of energy efficiency taxes to Congress Tuesday. http://ens.lycos.com/ens/jun99/1999L-06-30-09.html ======================================= WIND POWER NUMBER ONE CHOICE OF ELECTRIC CONSUMERS SACRAMENTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 23, 1999--Wind power is the number one choice of consumers who want to help reduce global warming according to a new report titled "Wind Energy, Green Marketing and Global Climate Change," coinciding with the annual American Wind Energy Association's conference being held in Burlington, Vt., this week. http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/990623/ca_ceert_w_1.html ======================================= SOLAR SYSTEM STARTS GENERATING ATOP THE PENTAGON An enormous installation of photovoltaic (PV) solar cells has started generating electricity on the roof of the Pentagon, the Department of Defense's five-sided headquarters in Washington, DC. The new PV system has a generating capacity of 30 kilowatts, making it one of the largest solar installations on the east coast of the U.S. The Pentagon will maintain the system, while Virginia Power will monitor its interaction with the power grid. The Pentagon installation uses micro-inverters to transform solar rays directly into alternating current or AC electricity, unlike most PV units that generate direct current or DC battery power. "Widespread application of these technologies by the federal government will save taxpayers' money and help speed the development of these clean energy sources," said Energy Secretary Bill Richardson at the official dedication Monday. http://ens.lycos.com/ens/jun99/1999L-06-30-09.html ======================================= FUEL CELL POWER HELPS BANK MAKE MONEY A fuel cell power system that is 100 to 1,000 times more reliable than traditional electricity sources will help a credit card processing bank serve its customers better and be more profitable. First National Bank of Omaha, Neb., has elected to use a fuel cell system from Sure Power Corporation of Danbury, Conn., to run its computer system that processes hundreds of millions of dollars in transactions every day. http://www.enn.com/news/enn-stories/1999/06/063099/fcell_4056.asp ======================================= FUEL CELL ENGINES WIN TOP HONORS Fuel cell vehicles are winning acclaim in reduced emission testing at North American alternatively fueled engine competitions. A fuel cell engine, recently debuted at the Department of Energy 1999 FutureCar Challenge, finished second. A Virginia Tech student engineering team that also received awards for lowest emission, best teamwork and best oral presentation designed the fuel cell/battery hybrid engine. The team used an Energy Partners fuel cell in a 1998 Chevy Lumina. http://www.enn.com/news/enn-stories/1999/06/062499/fuelcell_3803.asp ======================================= AUSTRALIA LEADS WAY TO ENERGY-EFFICIENT TVS Longer lasting and more energy efficient television and computer screens may be the wave of the future, thanks to a discovery from CSIRO, Australia's federal science agency. The screens will utilize CSIRO's cutting edge research to create a form of carbon known as nanotubes. http://www.enn.com/news/enn-stories/1999/06/062499/nanotubes_3873.asp ======================================= ROCKY FLATS At the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant near Denver, production has slowed and the focus is now on cleanup. Much of the waste from Rocky Flats is headed to a huge underground cavern near Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico. The cleanup and transport policies have protesters out in force. High Plains News Service (5:10) http://www.enn.com/enn-multimedia-archive/1999/06/062499/062499hpns2_3961.asp ======================================= New York Times June 29, 1999 Human Imprint on Climate Change Grows Clearer By WILLIAM K. STEVENS As evidence that the earth's atmosphere is warming continues to accumulate, scientists are making slow progress toward an answer to the big question raised by the evidence: how much of the warming is due to human activity and how much to natural causes? The United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the group of scientists widely considered the most authoritative voice on the subject, has already concluded that there is a "discernible human influence" on the global climate. Now the panel is deep into another of its periodic full-scale scientific assessments of global climate change, to be finished in about 18 months. While the group's conclusions are unformed, some experts on the problem say the human imprint on climate is becoming clearer, and may even have been the dominant factor in the global warming of recent decades. Not everyone agrees -- there is a range of judgments -- and virtually all experts say that in any case, a reliable estimate of the human imprint's magnitude still remains some distance off. A number of influences, both natural and man-made, cause the planet's temperature to vary. The natural ones include changes in solar radiation, and sulfate droplets called aerosols cast aloft by erupting volcanoes, which cool the atmosphere by reflecting sunlight. The human influence stems mostly from emissions of waste industrial gases like carbon dioxide, which trap heat in the atmosphere, and sulfate aerosols from industrial smokestacks. The combined impact of industrial aerosols and greenhouse gases createscomplex and distinctive temperature patterns. It was mostly an analysis of those patterns that led the intergovernmental panel in 1995 to abandon its previous position that global warming observed over the past century might as easily be natural as human-induced. Human factors appeared to be playing a part, the panel said then, but it offered no judgment on whether that part was big, small or in between. One recent piece of evidence suggesting a strong human influence, which seems likely to carry some weight with the intergovernmental panel, appeared recently in the journal Nature. Scientists at the Hadley Center for Climate Prediction and Research, a British Government organization, analyzed the global climate record of the last century in an effort to isolate and quantify the major factors producing the century's rise of about 1 degree Fahrenheit in the earth's average surface temperature. The research team led by Dr. Simon F. B. Tett found that in the earlier part of the century, the rise could be explained either by an increase in solar radiation or a combination of stronger solar radiation and heat-trapping greenhouse gases emitted by industrial economies. But they found that after the mid-1970's, when about half the century's warming took place, the warming resulted largely from the greenhouse gases. Other researchers have lately come to a similar conclusion. The Tett study represents "another jigsaw puzzle piece," said one expert, Dr. Tom M. L. Wigley of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. "There is still a long way to go" in completing the puzzle, he said, "but we're beginning to see the smile on the face of the Mona Lisa, I think -- or perhaps it should be a frown." Dr. Wigley was a principal author of the section of the intergovernmental panel's 1995 report dealing with detection of the human imprint on climate, but he is not involved in the latest assessment. If they were writing their report today, he said at a recent panel discussion on climate, he and his co-assessors of four years ago "would now make a stronger statement." But other participants in the discussion were more cautious. One, Dr. Michael E. Schlesinger, a climatologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, said that experts had insufficient knowledge of the magnitude of natural climatic variations, especially solar radiation, to gauge how large the human impact was by comparison. Another, Dr. Ronald Prinn of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said that although there was "accumulating evidence that humans were having an influence on the climate system," it would not be possible to discern its magnitude until the degree of natural climate variability could be pinned down better. Meanwhile, though, evidence of warming and its effects continues to mount. Earlier this year, scientists at the University of Massachusetts and the University of Arizona reconstructed the average annual surface temperature trend of the Northern Hemisphere for the last 1,000 years. While cautioning that the margin of error was large enough to render data from the early centuries untrustworthy, they found that the 20th century was the warmest of the millennium, by far. This and other analyses have found that the warmest years of all occurred in the 1990's, with 1998 the warmest on record. El Nio, the great pool of warm water in the tropical Pacific Ocean that from time to time heats the atmosphere and disrupts weather patterns, was responsible for some of the 1998 heating. A preliminary analysis by Dr. Wigley, however, has shown that when El Nio's effects are filtered out of the global temperature record statistically, 1998 still ranks as the warmest year. (This year is also shaping up as unusually warm, but not as warm as 1998.) Two studies reported in Nature this month suggest that the warming is being reflected in patterns of wildlife behavior and distribution. In one study, Dr. Camille Parmesan, a biologist at the National Center for Ecological Analysis in Santa Barbara, Calif., and 12 colleagues analyzed distribution patterns of 35 species of European butterflies. They found that for two-thirds of the species, their range of habitat had shifted northward by 22 to 150 miles coincidentally with Europe's warming trend. In the other study, Humphrey Q. B. Crick of the British Trust for Ornithology and Timothy H. Sparks of the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology in Cambridgeshire, England, analyzed the nesting habits of 20 species of birds in Britain. They found that, again coincident with a recent warming trend, the birds were laying their eggs earlier in the spring. This is the latest in a series of studies indicating that meteorological spring is coming earlier in the Northern Hemisphere. Some have also shown that fall is coming later. A third study in Nature this month reported, on the basis of bubbles of atmospheric gas contained in ice cores extracted from the Antarctic ice sheet, that present-day atmospheric levels of heat-trapping carbon dioxide were higher than at any other time in the last 420,000 years. At 360 parts per million, they are 20 percent higher than in any previous warm period between ice ages, and double the typical concentrations during an ice age. If greenhouse gas emissions are not reduced, the United Nations scientific panel has consistently said, atmospheric concentrations will continue to rise and warm the earth further. In its 1995 report, it projected a warming of 2 to 6 degrees Fahrenheit, with a best estimate of 3.5 degrees, by the year 2100. The warming would not end in 2100, the panel found, but would continue. By comparison, the earth has warmed by 5 to 9 degrees since the depths of the last ice age some 20,000 years ago. The amount of warming projected by the panel, it said, would create widespread climatic and ecological changes, including a shift in climatic zones, an increase in heat waves, warmer northern winters, increased precipitation when it rains but worse droughts when it does not, and a rise in sea level that could inundate many small island nations and drive tens of millions of people away from the coasts when storm surges develop. For a long time, the global warming debate focused on how much warming a given increase in greenhouse gases -- say, a doubling of atmospheric concentrations -- would produce. Though skeptics say it will be small, the dominant view for 20 years has been that a doubling would produce a warming of 3 to 8 degrees, other things being equal. This is a measure of the climate system's sensitivity to "forcing," as experts call it, by external heating and cooling influences, and many mainstream scientists say confidence that it is right has grown. Now attention is shifting to the relative strength of the external forcings. This is the crux of the problem of figuring out the magnitude of humans' influence on the climate. There are basically three main forcings: greenhouse gases and solar radiation, which warm the atmosphere, and sulfate droplets, or aerosols, from both volcanoes and industrial sources, which cool it. The amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has been firmly established and continuously monitored, though it is difficult if not impossible to predict how much there will be in the future. Once greenhouse gases diffuse throughout the entire lower part of the atmosphere they remain there for decades to centuries . Sulfate aerosols from volcanoes sometimes spread to the stratosphere, where they, too, diffuse globally and cool the earth. But they dissipate in two or three years. That is what happened with Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines, which temporarily cooled the earth by about 1 degree Fahrenheit after it erupted in 1991. Sulfate aerosols from industry generally rise only into the lower part of the atmosphere and fall out, as acid rain, within a few days. Moreover, their extent and impact is mostly regional rather than global. Until recently, they affected primarily the industrial countries of Europe and North America, but scientists now believe that they are diminishing in that part of the world because of controls on pollution. They are growing fast, however, in India, China and Southeast Asia. Experts have difficulty in getting a handle on the constantly shifting amounts and patterns of industrial aerosols, and they have a similarly hard time establishing the varying strength of solar radiation. Some mainstream scientists say that because the earth's average surface temperature has not varied by more than a degree or two since the last ice age, variations in the strength of the sun's radiation must be relatively small during the present interglacial period. Satellite measurements show some small variations, less than one-tenth of a percent, in concert with the 11-year sunspot cycle. But for the years before 1978, when satellite measurements began, scientists must estimate the variations from proxy indicators like sunspots. These estimates say that solar irradiance did not increase by more than 1 percent from 1908 to 1952. In the recent Tett study, the British scientists fed into a computer model of the climate system varying estimates, based on different proxy studies, of past solar irradiance. They also fed in the observed and estimated changes in greenhouse gas concentrations and aerosols from both volcanoes and industrial sources. They ran many simulations of the effect of each of these forcings and then averaged them together to see if they explained the observed global temperature rise -- and to determine what weight each should be given. Since the 1970's, the simulations revealed, global warming cannot be explained without a large impact from greenhouse gases. Dr. Schlesinger, the University of Illinois climatologist, says he has "a couple of problems" with the study. First, he says, the data on solar variability before 1978 are unreliable. Second, the climate system's natural internal variability, apart from external forcings, is quite large relative to the observed warming and has not been well quantified. For example, he says, there is a growing body of evidence that the warming in the early part of the century resulted from a natural oscillation in the surface temperature of the North Atlantic Ocean. The larger point, Dr. Schlesinger says, is that the climate system's internal variations may be so large that they render the Tett findings' statistical significance weaker. Nonetheless, Dr. Tett says he believes the findings strengthen the United Nations panel's 1995 conclusion about a human impact on climate. The struggle to gauge that impact goes on. "The important question," Dr. Prinn says, "is numbers" -- precise estimates of the relative weight of natural and human factors. "It could be there are big environmental issues involved here," he says, "or relatively modest ones. ---- REPORT Global Warming: Scientific Evidence By PATRICK MAZZA and RHYS ROTH This article is excerpted from a new white paper, "Global Warming Is Here: The Scientific Evidence," available from Climate Solutions, 610 E. 4th St., Olympia, WA 98501; phone 360-352-1763, info@climatesolutions.org A worldwide wave of extreme weather inflicted at least $90 billion in damage in 1998, more than in the entire 1980s. Last year was also the hottest on record. While no single weather event or year proves humans are warming the planet, a powerful scientific case is building. Some of the most compelling evidence emerged in just the past year. Greenhouse gases are present in the atmosphere in greater amounts than at any time in at least 220,000 years. Certainly something is heating the globe. The century's 10 warmest years have all occurred since 1983, seven in this decade. A new National Science Foundation study based on natural indicators such as tree rings, ice-cores and corals finds the last decade of the millennium has been its hottest. And 1998 was by far the hottest year. Temperatures surged faster than previously documented to break a record set just in 1997. Middle and lower latitude mountain glaciers are showing the effects. University of Colorado glaciologists at Boulder in 1998 reported that those glaciers have retreated on average at least 60 feet since 1961, and the rate at which they are melting is increasing. The retreat of mountain ice in tropical and subtropical latitudes provides "some of the most compelling evidence yet for recent global warming," Ohio State University researchers note. A new study by NASA's Goddard Institute found Greenland glaciers appear to be spewing icebergs into the ocean faster than in the past. The finding was unexpected, and raises the possiblity that global sea levels, already projected to rise 20 inches next century, could increase even faster. Predictions that global warming will be greatest in the polar regions are now being borne out. Arctic sea ice has been shrinking by 3% each decade since 1970. Several of the years with the smallest sea ice coverage were in the 1990s. Around the Antarctic Peninsula, extensive sea ice formed four winters out of every five in the mid-century. Since the 1970s that dropped to 1-2 winters out of five. Several Peninsula ice shelves, which attach to the continent but stretch into the sea, are in retreat. Some of the most dramatic losses came in 1998, when around 2,000 square miles calved into icebergs. The loss in one year equaled the average of 10-15. The Larsen A ice shelf, after years of slowly melting away, suddenly disintegrated in 1995. Scientists have now mounted a death watch for Larsen B and Wilkens, together three times larger than Delaware. Since ice shelves already displace water, the loss will not add to rising ocean levels. But melting northern tundra could have a devastating global effect. Carbon in tundra soils, equal to one-third that in the atmosphere, could be released. Tundra researcher George W. Kling of the University of Michigan says, "Our latest data show that the Arctic is no longer a strong sink for carbon. In some years, the tundra is adding as much or more carbon to the atmosphere than it removes." A warmer atmosphere is expected to cause more evaporation, making for worse droughts and more deluges. Beginning around 1980, sections of the U.S., Europe, Africa and Asia did begin to experience more dry spells, while parts of the U.S. and Europe have become much wetter. The National Climatic Data Center scrutinized U.S. weather records for extremes expected to increase under global warming. NCDC discovered that wild weather has been surging since the late 1970s. Statistical analysis showed only 1-in-20 odds that was a natural fluctuation. NCDC Chief Scientist Tom Karl commented, "I would say the climate is responding to greenhouse gases." Thick, precipitation-prone clouds significantly increased over Australia, Europe and the United States between 1951 and 1981. Researchers concluded the increase is "likely to be related" to human-caused greenhouse gases. Cloud cover holds in heat after the sun goes down. So nighttime warming is a significant global warming indicator. Nighttime temperatures are going up more than twice as fast as daytime temperatures. Extreme summer heat waves in the U.S increased 88% between 1949-95, with the biggest heat increases coming at night. Warming is having devastating impacts on plants and animals. Coral reefs, the "rainforests of the ocean" where one-quarter of all marine species are found, suffered record die-off due to heat-induced bleaching in 1998. "At this time, it appears that only ... global warming could have induced such extensive bleaching simultaneously throughout the disparate reef regions of the world," a State Department scientific report concluded. A dramatic temperature increase off North America's west coast began around 1977. Zooplankton, the microscopic plant-eaters that form the base of the marine food chain, dropped 70% because warmer waters suppressed colder, nutrient-rich currents. Indicating food chain collapse, ocean seabirds in the California Current have declined 90% since 1987. As the Pacific has warmed, so has Alaska. On the south central coast, cool temperatures normally keep the spruce bark beetle under control. But with the warming the beetles have killed most trees over three million acres, one of the largest insect-caused forest deaths in North American history. Evidence is mounting that global warming is here and humanity is driving it. Remaining scientific uncertainty "does not justify inaction in the mitigation of human-induced climate change and/or the adaptation to it," the American Geophysical Union said in a recent statement. The emerging scientific consensus leaves us with no excuses. We must rapidly transition from fossil fuels to clean energy. The global climate crisis, perhaps the greatest challenge in the history of civilization, calls upon us to act decisively and without delay. A rapid shift from fossil fuels is utterly crucial. Writing recently in Nature , 11 scientists said bringing on clean energy sources rapidly enough to stabilize the climate "could require efforts, perhaps international, pursued with the urgency of the Manhattan Project or the Apollo space program ... the potentially adverse effect of humanity on the Earth's climate could well stimulate new industries in the 21st century, as did the Second World War and the 'cold war' of this century." ----- UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI TEAM WINS SUNRAYCE '99 The University of Missouri - Rolla took first place in America's largest solar car race Tuesday as 29 solar cars rolled across the finish line at Epcot at Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida. http://ens.lycos.com/ens/jun99/1999L-06-30-09.html SOURCE: Alliance to Save Energy http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/990623/dc_allianc_1.html CONGRESS CONSIDERS FAMILY-FRIENDLY CLIMATE CHANGE BILL ... Alliance to Save Energy, Homes Coalition Urge Congress to Pass Home Energy Tax Credit WASHINGTON, June 23 /PRNewswire/ -- As homebuyers across America stampede a clogged housing market and homeowners renovate existing homes, the Coalition for Energy-Efficient Homes urges Congress to pass a home energy tax credit bill that will help fight pollution and climate change while furthering the American Dream of homeownership. Alliance to Save Energy President David M. Nemtzow testifies today on behalf of the diverse coalition of manufacturers, utilities, homebuilders, and energy-efficiency advocates before the House Committee on Ways and Means in support of the tax credit bill, H.R. 1358, introduced by Rep. Bill Thomas (R- CA). President Clinton is expected to release the administration's home energy tax credit plan later this year as part of his Climate Change Technology Initiative. "Homeownership for all who desire it has long been a public policy goal in the United States," declares Nemtzow. "We have the ability to act decisively today to make our homes more affordable, less polluting, and more comfortable, and help save American families millions of dollars on heating and cooling bills." Despite popular opinion that houses today are usually built with energy efficiency in mind, less than 2 percent of new homes actually achieve a high level of energy efficiency. "Many people are shocked to learn that their home generates twice as much greenhouse gas emission as their car," notes Nemtzow. "Regardless of what one thinks of climate change, incentives for energy- efficient homes provide a no-regrets strategy for reducing emissions while creating huge ancillary benefits for Americans." Thomas' bill provides a $2,000 tax credit to homebuilders for constructing energy-efficient homes that exceed the 1998 International Energy Conservation Code by 30 percent or more. Rep. Robert Matsui (D-CA) offered a similar bill last year as part of Clinton's climate change initiative but it contained a stringent qualifying level of 50 percent above code. Although he commends Clinton and Matsui for trying to encourage energy-efficient construction, Nemtzow says that the expected administration proposal, which will be substantially similar to Matsui's bill, will "severely limit" the number of builders interested in qualifying due to added cost, engineering considerations, and weak incentive-structure. The tax credit in H.R. 1358 would also apply to the nation's 100 million existing homes, where homeowners would be eligible for a tax credit for 20 percent of the cost of improvement on any section of their home brought up to current code. "The lion's share of energy use and energy waste in the residential sector remains in existing homes," says Nemtzow. "Homeowners will realize the huge difference in comfort and dollar savings attainable by making relatively inexpensive improvements to discrete sections of their home." The Thomas bill has bipartisan support from 24 members of the House, with co-sponsors on the Ways and Means committee including Rep. Charles Rangel (D- NY), Rep. Wally Herger (R-CA), Rep. Jim Ramstad (R-MN), and Rep. Phil English (R-PA). The Coalition for Energy-Efficient Homes is comprised of the following organizations: * Air Conditioning Contractors of America * Alliance to Save Energy * American Architectural Manufacturers Association * American Homeowners Foundation * American Portland Cement Alliance * American Rockwool, Inc. * American Supply Association * Andersen Corporation * Apache Products Company * Atlas Roofing Corporation * Bayer Corporation * Cardinal IG * Celotex Corporation * CertainTeed Corporation * Dow Chemical * Edison Electric Institute * Evanite Fiber Corporation * Exeltherm, Inc. * Fibrex Insulations, Inc. * Firestone Building Products Co. * Hearth Products Association * Homasote Company * Honeywell, Inc. * ICI Polyurethane * Insulating Concrete Form Association * Isolatek International * Johns Manville * Knauf Fiber Glass * Louisiana Pacific Corporation * MFS, Inc. * National American Indian Housing Council * National Association of Home Builders * National Council of the Housing Institute * North American Insulation Manufacturers Association * North American Steel Framing Alliance * National Rural Electric Cooperative Association * Owens Corning * Peachtree Doors and Windows * Polyisocyanurate Insulation Manufacturers Association * Ray Core * Rmax, Inc. * Rock Wool Manufacturing Co. * Roxul, Inc. * Simonton Windows * Society of the Plastics Industry * Sloss Industries Corporation * Tenneco Building Products * USG Interiors, Inc. * Western Fiberglass Group * Whirlpool Corporation The Alliance to Save Energy is a nonprofit coalition of business, government, consumer, and environmental leaders who promote the efficient and clean use of energy worldwide to benefit consumers, the environment, economy, and national security. monte.basgall@duke.edu http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/Environ/SOIL.HTM BOMB FALLOUT HELPS PINPOINT SOIL CARBON DIOXIDE DURHAM, N.C. - A long-term study has found that while trees take up in their tissues substantial amounts of the excess carbon dioxide that contributes to global warming, the accumulation of carbon into soils may be relatively slow. The four-decade retrospective study of soil carbon in a Southeastern forest as it reestablished itself was published in the July 1 issue of Nature . "A tremendous amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide has been reaccumulated in the regrowing forest," said Daniel Richter, an associate professor and soil specialist at Duke University's Nicholas School of the Environment, in an interview. "Carbon is accumulated not only in the wood and leaves of the trees, but also in below-ground roots and surface leaf litter. But the amount of reaccumulation is really quite surprisingly low in the topsoil itself." Richter is lead author of the article that describes how he and his colleagues used as a tracer the elevated levels of radioactive Carbon-14 created as fallout during the open-air nuclear bomb testing era. The researchers measured where the captured carbon dioxide (CO2) went during the first 40-year life of a South Carolina experimental pine forest. This is the first experiment of its kind that directly estimated carbon accumulation in a whole forest over several decades, he said. Most climatologists believe that increasing atmospheric CO2 buildups from burning fossil fuels and other human activities could trap enough solar heat in a "greenhouse effect" to produce global warming in the next century. Scientists also have theorized that the world's forests may be able to take up much of that extra carbon dioxide load. The study, a collaboration between Duke and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's U.S. Forest Service, has been underway at the Calhoun Experimental Forest, typical of many in the South, which was planted on abandoned cotton, corn and tobacco fields in 1957. This reforestation experiment was established within the Sumter National Forest by co-author Carol Wells, an ecologist now retired from the USDA's Forest Sciences Laboratory in Research Triangle Park, N.C. The experiment is currently the longest running study of a forest system that regularly records soil changes in multiple permanent test plots and also preserves soil samples in permanent archives - now kept in a wooden cabinet near Richter's Duke laboratory. Many scientists currently are evaluating natural processes that remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. They also are studying how much carbon dioxide gets released to the atmosphere by processes like converting forests into farmland and plowing carbon-rich fields to plant crops. Researchers have long known that plants take in CO2 to create plant tissue through photosynthesis using sunlight. And they have established that some of that carbon eventually finds its way into soil after plants die and decay. But they remain unsure how much, where and how quickly captured carbon is shuttled through this complex recycling process. According to the new article in Nature , other studies near the forest suggest that more than a century of farming activities had removed about 40 percent of the original organic carbon from the soil's upper 30 centimeters (almost one foot) before the experimental forest was planted. In this study, Richter, Wells, Daniel Markewitz and Susan Trumbore sought to trace how much carbon dioxide was accumulated by the fast-growing loblolly pine forest planted on eight former farmland plots, and how quickly this reforestation would restore carbon to the soil. Markewitz is a former Duke post-doctoral student now on the faculty of the University of Georgia at Athens, while Trumbore is a University of California, Irvine scientist with expertise in the study of so-called "bomb carbon." The scientists' measurements depended on the fact that open-air nuclear testing in the 1950s and 60s nearly doubled amounts of Carbon-14 in the Earth's atmosphere before the1963 test ban treaty. This pulse of Carbon-14 allows that radioactive form of carbon to serve as a tracer for various studies of how natural processes use CO2. During the life of the Calhoun Experimental Forest, the authors' measurements show that by the 1990s its 40-year-old trees had taken up nearly 70 percent of all new CO2-derived carbon in above-ground woods and leaves, while another 30 percent was accumulated below ground in the forest litter, tree roots and soil. Less than 1 percent of carbon had been retained by organically active soil matter underlying the litter, even though measurements in the 1960s showed high initial inputs of radioactive Carbon-14 there. Paradoxically, the scientists found that the lowermost 13 to 23 inches of soil depth actually lost carbon during the 40 years of the study, while soil at the 3- to 3-inch depth had elevated levels. The loss of carbon in lower soil depths was because soil microorganisms in South Carolina's warm, damp climate actively decomposed organic matter soils, releasing carbon, Richter explained. "Since pine forests are so vigorous in taking up carbon, we expected there would be ample opportunity for the topsoil carbon to reaccumulate over the four decades," he said. "What we underestimated was the vigor of the soil in being an engine of organic carbon's decomposition." Also, said Richter, the Calhoun forest's soil is of a type that does not bind well to carbon to protect it from microbial attack. Richter suspects that carbon storage has now slowed within the Calhoun's trees and underlying litter, but that its soils will continue to reaccumulate carbon as the forest ages and its pine trees are succeeded by hardwood stands. The presence of hardwoods is important, he said, because earthworms, beetles and other animals that prefer to live under hardwoods are better able to help soil store carbon. The Calhoun's sandy and coarse-textured soil is characteristic of about half of the interior Piedmont region of the Southeastern United States, stretching between Virginia and Alabama, he said. "Our longer-term interest is, in fact, to study the South as a window to a huge fraction of the Earth's surface, especially in the tropics, that has similar, very weathered and acidic soils." In a related policy commentary in the "Compass" section of the June 25 issue of the research journal Science , Duke ecologist and soil scientist William Schlesinger argued against suggestions that intensive agricultural practices could sequester significant amounts of atmospheric carbon dioxide in soils. These practices include using large amounts of fertilizers as well as irrigating crops on marginal, semi-arid land. Other soil scientists, wrote Schlesinger, have suggested that such agricultural practices could significantly help the United States meet the guidelines of the international Kyoto Protocol to allay global warming. These scientists have predicted that such practices could take up all carbon dioxide released by conventional farming, as well as sequestering a significant portion of CO2 emitted during the burning of fossil fuels. But Schlesinger, a professor with Duke's botany department and Nicholas School of the Environment, disagreed. Additional applications of nitrogen fertilizer that accompany such practices could actually result in the release of more CO2 into the atmosphere, he predicted, because manufacturing, transporting and applying fertilizers themselves emit so much of the greenhouse gas. Also negating any additional storage of carbon dioxide would be the need to power pumps to supply irrigation water for dry-land farming, combined with chemical reactions between arid soils and calcium in that water. "A number of senators and representatives see a credit given to farmers in big agricultural states as a vote-getting mechanism," Schlesinger said in an interview. "In other words, a farmer might get paid to sequester carbon in a field in South Dakota. What I think they need to do is realize that might come at a cost of carbon emissions at a fertilizer plant in Louisiana. "If you really want to sequester carbon you don't manage agricultural land more intensely," he added. "You abandon it totally and let it grow back to forest. Then you've got the storage of carbon in vegetation and the storage of carbon in soil. And, as Dan Richter's study has shown, most of it is stored in vegetation." ### Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1999 18:14:37 -0400 (EDT) Environment Minister Michael Meacher published evidence that climate change is affecting the UK in a new report 'Indicators of Climate Change in the UK' compiled by the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology and the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia. The full report (product code 99DPL001) is available from DETR free literature, PO Box 236, Wetherby, West Yorkshire, LS23 7NB. Tel: 0870 1226 236; Fax: 0870 1226 237 and at http://www.nbu.ac.uk/iccuk --- Reuters Jun 25, 1999 LONDON, June 25 (Reuters) - Britain's changeable weather has always been an irritant, now it almost sends the economy into recession. The country's Office for National Statistics (ONS) said on Friday that economic growth was flat in the first quarter of the year, depressed by much milder than normal weather. Warm weather pushed down demand for electricity and gas, and helped produce a 2.0 percent fall in energy extraction which in turn knocked 0.2 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Economists have for months been mesmerised by the actions of Britain's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), but maybe they should also cast an eye over long-term weather forecasters. ``Global warming has significant implications for economies worldwide, not just in Britain,'' said Jeremy Hawkins, economist at Bank America in London. ``Statisticians adjust their numbers for seasonal factors but they may have to re-examine many of their assumptions in the future...if the south of England ends up having the same weather as France's Loire valley then it will also affect the economy and seasonal demand and spending,'' Hawkins added. Corporations sensitive to the weather are increasingly spending more to try to find out in advance how the weather will turn out, and retailers and the leisure industry are particularly sensitive. The ONS said that if output from the energy sector had been flat in the first quarter, then the economy would have grown by around 0.2 percent. That would have taken the economy clear of any threat of negative growth. ``The first three months of the year was certainly milder than normal, though the level of rainfall was close to normal,'' said Nathan Powell of Britain's Meteorological Office. In fact, for the first three months of the year temperatures averaged around 42 fahrenheit against an average of 40. January was marked by low pressure systems and lots of rain, while February and March rain levels were closer to normal. The flat outturn for first quarter GDP was unchanged from the first estimate, though the year-on-year rate was revised up to 0.7 percent from 0.6 percent. The figures showed the service sector, which accounts for over two- thirds of economic output, growing 0.4 percent against an earlier estimate of 0.2 percent, thanks to stronger growth in transport services. Manufacturing output fell by 0.3 percent, the third successive quarterly fall. While the milder weather crimped energy output, rising consumer confidence and perhaps warm weather helped tempt consumers to spend. Household expenditure in the first quarter of the year was revised up sharply to 1.4 percent quarter on quarter from a previous 1.1 percent. ``Consumers are still the backbone of recovery...with expenditure rising at its fastest rate since the second quarter of 1997,'' said Dharshini David, economist at HSBC Markets. Spending on durable goods was particularly strong, rising 4.6 percent on the quarter. ``The first quarter is likely to have marked the trough in activity...we continue to think the trough in base rates (5.0 percent) has now been reached,'' Dharshini added. Britain's overall economic growth rate is expected to respond to recent cuts in interest rates and grow 1.0 percent or more this year, accelerating to its long-term trend rate of 2.25 percent or slightly higher next year. --- Subject: GL: Climate News Resent-Date: Tue, 22 Jun 99 23:11:29 EDT 1. Science 2. Politics/Policy SCIENCE REASSESSMENT OF ICE-AGE COOLING OF THE TROPICAL OCEAN AND ATMOSPHERE S. W. HOSTETLER AND A. C. MIX http://www.nature.com/server-java/Propub/nature/399673A0.abs_frameset ALASKA'S COLUMBIA GLACIER TRAVELING AT RECORD PACE Already the fastest moving glacier in the world, the Columbia Glacier in Alaska has increased its speed from 25 meters to 35 meters per day inrecent months, according to a University of Colorado at Boulder glaciologist. http://www.eurekalert.org/releases/ucol-acg061799.html GLOBAL WARMING DISEASE WARNING Global warming disease warning The World Health Organisation (WHO) says global warming could lead to a major increase in insect-borne diseases in Britain and Europe. http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/english/sci/tech/newsid_372000/372219.stm COLDER CLIMATE MAY STIFLE VOLCANOES A study of volcanoes (Geophysical Research Letters) in eastern California over millions of years, eruptions alternated with cycles of colder climate. While scientists have long known that the gases blasted into the air by volcanoes can briefly cool the weather, the new findings are prompting speculation that it works both ways - glacial conditions can suppress volcanoes. http://dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/ap/science/story.html?s=v/ap/19990622/sc/fi GOOD-BYE TO A GREENHOUSE GAS. Science News, June 19, 1999, pp392 -394. Summary: Nations around the world are looking toward carbon sequestration as a way to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide that is emitted into the atmosphere. Carbon sequestration is a strategy that aims to capture and dispose of carbon dioxide in such places as rocks on the ocean floor, deep coal seams, or in brine-filled aquifers. Over the next few years, researchers will be disposing of 50 to 100 tons of liquid carbon dioxide into the ocean off the coast of Hawaii. The liquid does not mix with the water, but forms jiggly balls the consistency of Jell-O that come to rest on the ocean floor. The Department of Energy and US legislators are encouraging exploration of carbon sequestration as a major way to stabilize the concentrations of the substance in the atmosphere. The DOE budget for research on this topic in FY1999 is $13 million, up from $1.6 million just a year ago. Carbon sequestration is "one of the best options for reducing the buildup of greenhouse gases, not only in this country but in China, India, and elsewhere. It is the only climate change option that won't require a wholesale changeover in our energy infrastructure," says Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson. Some scientists and environmentalists, however, say that not enough is known about how disposing of carbon dioxide in this way could affect ecosystems. There is a chance that disposing liquid carbon dioxide on the ocean floor could acidify the deep water and harm the animals and microbes that reside there. "We really don't have any idea what it would do to those ecosystems," says oceanographer Sallie W. Chisholm of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Others are concerned about storage of carbon dioxide in underground geologic formations. "If it is stored in an aquifer, will it be there decades from now?" asks Wim Turkenburg of Utrecht University in the Netherlands. "If there is a crack, if there is an earthquake, what might happen? Carbon dioxide is a heavy gas, so if it comes up from the underground, then you will have a layer of carbon dioxide close to the ground. That is, of course, not so good if you want to have oxygen for breathing." This article is accompanied by a sidebar article describing techniques used to pull carbon out of fossil fuels before combustion. "BEYOND LA NINA, A CHANGING CLIMATE FOR RESEARCH." Washington Post, 14 June 99, A9. Ants Leema, director of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Climate Prediction Center, says that in addition to El Nino and La Nina, other things that have an impact on U.S. climate are a long-term Pacific-based weather cycle, an Atlantic pressure oscillation, regional peculiarities, and global warming. He says, "`The El Ninos come and go; we know there's another long-term factor at work; and we think the impacts of man are warming up the planet as well. We don't yet know the details.'" Sidebar: "La Nina's Effects" consists of a world map along with a graph of sea surface temperatures. AN EXPERIMENT IN THE APPLICATION OF CLIMATE FORECASTS NOAA-OGP Activities Related to the 1997-98 El Nino Event" (including full color figures) is now available on the Website of the Office of Global Programs of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (USA) in PDF graphical format. This document is a summary of many of the activities undertaken regionally and internationally by the global community to forecast and prepare for the climate-related impacts of 1997-98 El Nino event: http://www.ogp.noaa.gov/enso/retro/ensodoc.htm Currently it can be viewed, downloaded, and printed in 5 parts exactly as it appeared in the original January 1999 publication (using Acrobat). Eventually it will appear in HTML readable format as well. Please spread the word to your colleagues and constituents that the document is now accessible on the web. For additional information about NOAA/OGP: http://www.ogp.noaa.gov Joshua Foster Staff Advisor for International Activities Research Applications-Climate and Societal Interactions Office of Global Programs (OGP) National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) 1100 Wayne Ave., Suite 1225 Silver Spring, MD 20910 Phone: 1-301-427-2089x173 Fax: 1-301-427-2082 Email: foster@ogp.noaa.gov http://ogp.noaa.gov/ CLIMATE MONITOR ON-LINE Drawing on the databank maintained by the Climatic Research Unit, Climate Monitor Online presents a summary of current climate conditions in tabular and graphical form including the very latest estimates of global surface air temperature. http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/climon/ The site is updated at regular intervals. CRAFT TO TRACK CLIMATE-AFFECTING LINK OF SEA AND WIND. The New York Times, June 15, 1999, pD2. Summary: This week NASA will launch a new satellite that will observe and measure the interaction between wind and oceans, a phenomenon that has a huge impact on the Earth's climate. The satellite is called the Quick Scatterometer, or Quikscat. The scatterometer, a radar device, will scan the top of the oceans of the world and take measurements of the winds blowing over them, including speed and direction. The measurements will be taken continuously every day for two years. "Knowledge about which way the wind blows and how hard is it blowing may seem simple, but this kind of information is actually a critical tool in improved weather forecasting, early storm detection and identifying subtle changes in global climate," said Ghassem Asrar, head of NASA's Office of Earth Science. The scatterometer works by transmitting high-frequency microwave pulses to the ocean and measuring the pulses that bounce back. A different scatterometer, Nscat, was launched in 1996 aboard the Japanese satellite, Midori. Nscat scanned more than 90 percent of the world's oceans, but it suffered a power failure in a year later. QuikScat will replace this data stream. "We will pick up basically where Midori left off," said Michael Freilich of Oregon State University, who is involved in the project. "We have a more advanced instrument that will make more refined measurements than before, seeing more small-scale wind variabilities than was previously possible." Quikscat was conceived of and assembled in a very short timeframe - about one year. Scientists saw an urgent need for this type of data to be collected. The satellite was ready to launch last November, but was delayed due to problems with the fleet of Tital launchers. Quikscat will be launched on a Titan 2 rocket. The satellite data will aid in weather forecasting. The data will be distributed to forecasters and researchers by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. JET STREAMS STUDIED FOR CLUES TO DROUGHT Two jet streams that flow over West Africa in the summer months may be an important factor in examining the drought that has plagued the region for the past 20 years. "We are trying to explain the West African drought, in part, by looking at the correlation between precipitation and the jet streams," says Colleen Mikovitz, graduate student in meteorology in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences. http://www.enn.com/news/enn-stories/1999/06/061499/jetstream_3639.asp POLITICS/POLICY "WHITE HOUSE SEEKS TO POSTPONE MEETING FOR GLOBAL-WARMING TREATY UNTIL 2001." Wall Street Journal, 14 June 99, B10. Summary: In order to give negotiators more time to develop the compliance mechanisms necessary for completion of the global warming treaty, which will establish provisions for the control and trading of emissions among nations world-wide, the Clinton administration is seeking to postpone the treaty-sealing convention until 2001. If the delay is accepted, the U.S. expects to gain more clout in the final bargaining, though the final say would go to the next administration. UNITED NATIONS FRAMEWORK CONVENTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE - Secretariat For use of the media only; not an official document. PRESS RELEASE MINISTERIAL TALKS ON CLIMATE CHANGE SET FOR 2-4 NOVEMBER IN BONN Bonn, 11 June 1999. Two weeks of talks on the UN Climate Change Convention and its Kyoto Protocol concluded here today after extensive debate on the technical and political issues that must still be resolved to advance the implementation of the Convention and to ensure that the Protocol will be fully operational when it enters into force. The talks are to continue at the Fifth Session of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention, to be held in Bonn from 25 October to 5 November. COP-5 will be attended by ministers from around the world during a high-level segment from midday on 2 November to midday on 4 November. The main outstanding issues must be finalized at the COP's Sixth Session, which will take place in late 2000 or early 2001. An offer by the Government of the Netherlands to host COP-6 in The Hague was welcomed by the participants. Many governments are awaiting the outcome of this vital conference before ratifying the Protocol and thus finalizing their acceptance of it. "Technical work on many of the methodologies and procedures needed for implementing the Convention and the Protocol is advancing well," said Michael Zammit Cutajar, the Convention's Executive Secretary. "But fundamental political and policy decisions must still be taken on the ability of developed countries to use emissions trading and investments in developing country projects to meet their Kyoto targets. These decisions will affect the costs of cutting emissions, so the stakes are high." Over the past two weeks, government officials have paid a great deal of attention to the challenge of how the Protocol's three "mechanisms" for emissions trading, clean development, and joint implementation should function. National and group positions have been clarified, paving the way for more detailed discussions and the drafting of texts at the next COP. A closely linked issue is the development of credible compliance procedures. Delegates have agreed on some of the guiding principles for a compliance system and have produced a questionnaire for obtaining the written views of governments in time for COP-5. The next steps in the work programme on methodological issues have also been agreed. Key issues include how developed countries should report their greenhouse gas inventories, how to estimate net emissions, and how to improve the accounting for emissions from bunker fuels for international transport. The meetings were attended by some 1,500 participants from 147 governments and 152 intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations. Note to journalists: For information on accreditation and press facilities at COP-5, please contact Axel Wustenhagen at (+49-228) 815 2770, fax (+49-228) 815 1999, e-mail unic@uno.de. For interviews or additional information please contact Michael Williams at (+41-22) 917 8242/44, fax (+41-22) 797 3464, e-mail mwilliams@unep.ch. Official documents are available on the Internet at http//www.unfccc.de. WHAT GLOBAL WARMING? As the earth continues to warm, the public disconnects. http://cgi.pathfinder.com:80/time/magazine/articles/0,3266,26845,00.html MISC FIRE ANTS TAKING A BIG BITE OUT OF SOUTH CAROLINIANS' HEALTH A study in The Journal of the South Carolina Medical Association published this month found 660,000 people suffered fire ant stings last year and two people died. About 33,000 people sought medical attention costing $2.4 million. That's way up from the 24,000 who consulted doctors for ant stings in 1986, the report said. Fire ants were mostly a Lowcountry problem at first. Their first sightings were in Charleston and Orangeburg counties in 1952. But the ants could be found in 27 Lowcountry and Midlands counties by 1973 and all 46 counties in the state by 1986. Experts thought the pests wouldn't make it past the North Carolina-South Carolina border. Now, seeing fire ants close to Washington, D.C., would not be a stretch, researcher Lynne Thompson said at a national fire ant conference in Charleston three months ago. The pests cause about $2 billion in losses in the South each year. http://www.nando.net/healthscience/story/body/0,1079,60876-96897-691761-0,00.htm